Right now, we’re watching a rare phenomenon happen in real time: a public image of the moon. NASA’s Artemis II program-a government-sponsored space flight mission that paves the way for a future moon landing-has captured attention and imagination through open coverage, educational content and a sense of shared curiosity that feels undeniably community. It’s a reminder of what it looks like when government funding, government agencies and storytelling work together to make shared life sound big and ambitious.
At the same time, private enterprises in space exploration and projection technology are often celebrated as the pinnacle of ambition, built on the idea of disruption and individual glory—think of the SpaceX-style logo and the myth of billionaires—even when they make the most of public contracts, infrastructure and research. Billions of dollars flow into these future-oriented projects, while libraries, schools and more social institutions struggle to survive.
Communication design has played an important role in making this sound familiar. Private aspirations are presented as bold and visionary, with clear branding and interesting stories that attract public attention, while public infrastructure is seen as static and usable.
Public moonshot versus private moonshot
This inequality does more than just reflect values; it actively reinforces them, telling us that the future is something that is built elsewhere, with private hands, rather than something that we build together in our shared spaces. And the consequences of that narrative are visible everywhere. Libraries, some of the most trusted and accessible public institutions, face closures and budget cuts. Public transport systems are struggling to modernize and schools are being forced to rely on short-term private funding to cover gaps in services.
Meanwhile, where public money is being used transparently—like in New York City, where efforts championed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani are paying local residents decent wages clear snow during storms or send workers to them to fix thousands of holes-we see how people can directly get their tax dollars improving the places they walk every day.
As a communication design studio working in institutions today, we have learned to treat design as a social tool with the power to shape, and reverse, cultural narratives. By reframing collective life as a priority again, we can send a powerful message: protecting public opinion is something we should invest in, not just for the future, or for other planets, but for the shared life we are building here. This is why we need to treat design as a social tool, and do it responsibly.
Redesigning ambition
If design helps normalize this narrative that private ambition is heroic, it has the power and responsibility to change it. Communication design can reframe public infrastructure as a space for innovation, creativity and possibility.
This starts by making the community stand out rather than lump together, making its human impact undeniably visible and audible. Libraries, for example, are at a crossroads. Essential to preserving the past and envisioning our future, these important public spaces face a real risk of losing the federal funding that keeps them operating. Now more than ever, we must rethink the city-wide network of library systems with a unified language facing the public that makes their public role visible as important places for learning, debate, rest and care. We need to talk about clear explanations of how these structures are funded, and the role that communities can play in shaping what happens within them, before we lose them.
Design helps organize a cohesive life where it celebrates the “ordinary.” Some powerful new things happen every day. Post offices, for example, remain one of the most truly public repositories. Everyone passes through them, but few feel invited to stay. Reimagined mail becomes a community domain, combining mail services and displays and other community services, designed to restore trust in shared programs that people have already seen.
Participation is another important factor. Meaningful community design invites people to engage, contribute and feel a sense of ownership and belonging shared responsibility becomes a reality every day. In public work, this means creating points of common understanding between donors, institutions and communities so that it is clear who this work belongs to and why it is important. For example, a community-based sanitation system it can embed a clear, easily spoken language in its collecting routes, corresponding to a permanent or permanent Museum that shows the work, history and public benefit of keeping the city running.
We can go further by making the flow of public money itself visible, talking clearly when citizens are paid for city programs such as those promoted by Mamdani in New York, so that people can actually see their taxes turn into safer roads and better roads.
When we show the impact of complex systems, especially those that are invisible in human terms, not just numbers, they start to feel relevant. The true impact of funding is becoming easier to see and understand. Community design creates stories that position philanthropies as partners in tangible systemic change, addressing urgent needs and gaps in community life. These tangible, grassroots initiatives reflect the kind of collective desire that philanthropy can match and nurture, rather than merely chasing high-profile, privately written “moonshots.”
Protecting public opinion
In essence, this change is about protecting public opinion, reminding people that the future is not just something built in a lab or launched into space, but something we build together. When design helps people understand how shared systems work and who is responsible for them, it strengthens public health. When it hides those questions, it weakens them.
Designers have a unique role to play in this effort, holding the tools that shape how people see the world and what they believe is possible. By reframing public infrastructure as something ambitious and important, we shift the narrative away from private desire as the only path to progress.
The marketing and design of public spaces should provoke, disturb and refuse to look away. At best, it is a culture-building act that makes power visible and challenges inequality. In an era of severe federal funding cuts and high shared uncertainty, this task is now more urgent than ever. If Artemis II showed what public desire can look like, the challenge now is to bring that same clarity, visibility and urgency back to Earth.
