Individualist Passport

We struggled to articulate the core tenets of individualism as an ideology. On the one hand, it was easy to see how individualism — carried to its logical conclusion — could result in anarchy. If the ultimate unit of power is the individual human, organized government institutions necessarily restrict the freedom of individuals. However, we settled on a modern Libertarian take on individualism, which views individuals as the basic unit of social analysis. While it still sees the state as a legitimate entity, it upholds the importance of individual rights. It argues individuals are ultimately responsible for the results of their actions.

We found that the current passport design emphasizes the passport holder’s country rather than the individual. For example, the front of a passport is an emblem of the country. The pages inside are filled with images and quotations representing the country. Even the idea of needing a passport to cross a man-made boundary exists because of countries. As individualists, we felt that the emphasis of the passport should be on the individual rather than his or her country. However, we also felt that we wanted to preserve the level of security that comes from using a passport.

Thus for our design, we chose to emphasize the individual rather than the country. We did this by deciding that a passport holder should be allowed to design his or her own passport. As long as the passport includes a standard set of information, such as a photograph, name and date of birth; and that it has a biometric chip, the user has freedom to the colors, quotations, etc. In addition, the individualistic passport design does not limit one to a book-like design. We did feel that there should likely be a size or weight limit so that passports are easily carried and scanned, but also did not want to be too prescriptive.

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