ETHICS
(
)
graphic design in-takes
booklet under
by
Faculdade de Belas-Artes Universidade de Lisboa 2010 -----------------------------------------------Design de Comunicação IV Professor Pedro Almeida Semestre 1 — Novembro -----------------------------------------------R.3/EXE.1 “Mixing Messages” Interactividade + Desconstrução
Sérgio Manuel Neves Student number 4795 Lisbon, Portugal -----------------------------------------------o.k.a. Chazzy wewillneverhaveparis@hotmail.com http://www.blogger.com/ profile/14638752243366746868 -----------------------------------------------Very special thanks to: Eileen MacAvery Kane
“Sit in a comfortable chair, with a favourite drink and an expansive view and contemplate a little. You will find there are many rewarding detours on the way...” Lucienne Roberts, Good: an introduction to ethics in graphic design
Ethics is about one’s ethos. It is about one’s whole way of life. It is about what sort of person one is. Anthony Grayling, The heart of things
CONTENTS Page 3 between black... -----------------------------------------------Page 4 + 5 structural diagram -----------------------------------------------Page 6 + 7 intentions -----------------------------------------------Page 8 ++ 12 milton glaser on professionalism,, education, celebrity and criticism interview by steven heller http://www.neshanmagazine.com/articles.asp?id=300
-----------------------------------------------Page 13 helen armstrong graphic design theory: readings from the field + lucienne roberts good: an introduction to ethics in graphic design -----------------------------------------------Page 14 and 15 ataxia “dust”, featured on “automatic writing”
Page 16 and 17 mário moura ética laboral do designer on design em tempos de crise
Page 22 + 23 edward tenner interview for backtalk by steven heller
http://www.limitedlanguage.org/discussion/
http://www.princeton.edu/~tenner/BackTalk-Tenner Page
index.php/archive/work-ethics/
-----------------------------------------------24 + 25 milton glaser 12 Steps on the Road to Hell
-----------------------------------------------Page 18 lucienne roberts good: an introduction to ethics in graphic design + eileen macavery kane (in thesis) -----------------------------------------------Page 19 ”lettersoup” playful scheme representing the immensity of topics inside ethics in graphic design; it is a matter of picking any one
-----------------------------------------------Page 20 eileen macavery kane articles on ethics in graphic design http://www.ethicsingraphicdesign.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3bjZbbZM8Q
-----------------------------------------------Page 21 aiga standards of professional practice
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http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/standardsprofessional-practice
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http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_ 0802/gla/index.html http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xwV7leOjkU
-----------------------------------------------Page 26 + 27 first things first manifesto 2000 http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=18&fid=99
-----------------------------------------------Page 28 + 29 eileen macaveery kane thesis on ethics in graphic design + objective own thought -----------------------------------------------Page 30 ...and white, is grey area -----------------------------------------------Page 31 authors’ glossary ------------------------------------------------
(BLACK)
MILTON GLASER ON PROFESSIONALISM, EDUCATION, CELEBRITY AND CRITICISM
N E I C U L E ROB INTRO
: AN GOOD N GRA I S C I ETH
HELE
ONG R T S M N AR RY:
O N THE LD G I S E HIC D HE FIE GRAP GS FROM T IN READ
NNE ERUTCSTION TO
OD N DESIG APHIC
MÁRIO MOURA
THE DESIGNER’S WORK ETHICS on DESIGN EM TEMPOS DE CRISE
AIGA’s
Ethical Code
STEVEN HELLER to EDWARD TENNER
an interview for BACKTALK
FIRST THINGS FIRST
MILTON GLASER
12 STEPS ON THE ROAD TO HELL
EILEEN MACAVERY KANE’s THESIS
and articles
chaz
FW: i don’t think i will focus on any particular topic, or even look to answer any of the many questions raised by this issue. i think i would much rather expose the entirity of the ethics in graphic design, and from there, enthice the discussion around it. it seems so much more interesting to do so than to try to close the subject (uneffectively, i might add) forwarded e-mail to Eileen Macavery Kane, explaining my intentions
Milton Glaser é um dos mais importantes e influentes designers gráficos dos últimos cinquenta anos. A sua enorme experiência no ramo leva-o a analisar a evolução da profissão de forma cautelosa, admitindo a maior difusão do design, o que leva a a um aumento das expectativas e as torna mais concretas. Isto, segundo o próprio, é uma das causas de uma profissionalização e crescimento em ritmo acelerado do design, que leva também à sua sofisticação e a uma preocupação crescente com as possibilidades dentro dos seus campos de acção. De forma um pouco mais aprofundada, Helen Armstrong e Lucienne Roberts descrevem a evolução recente do design e da teoria do design, e as mudanças que os levam a criar ramificações tão complexas como a preocupação social e ambiental, acabando mesmo por abordar uma das mais interessantes destas ramificações — a ética. O designer português Mário Moura fala da ética laboral do designer como um tópico chave dentro da profissão, nos dias que correm. Examina a problemática de forma
elaborada e crítica, identificando áreas cinzentas entre os pretos e brancos do design, e chegando mesmo a propôr uma “técnica de controle” perante propostas de trabalho dentro destas áreas. A britânica Lucienne Roberts faz do seu livro (GOOD: Ethics on Graphic Design) um estudo completo da temática, desde o seu enraizamento na cultura humana até a uma perspectiva histórica e evolutiva, e focando-se depois na problemática dentro do design gráfico, questionando o que é “bom”. A sua corrente de pensamento é em tudo similar à deste booklet, e é por isso que os seus textos vão acompanhando a evolução da narrativa aqui desenvolvida. Mas a ética, não sendo algo de palpável ou completamente descritível, está sujeita ao julgamento do designer que sobre ela seja chamado a agir. Daí ser importante ter várias perspectivas sobre o assunto, a partir das conclusões retiradas das entrevistas da própria Lucianne Roberts. Daqui surgem os parâmetros estabelecidos pela própria AIGA, para um design eticamente “justo” e “limpo”;
o próprio Milton Glaser, numa abordagem mais pessoal e crítica; Edward Tenner, quando entrevistado por Steven Heller, concede uma perspectiva histórica única sobre a ética; e o manifesto First Things First de 2000, assinado por 33 profissionais que urgem por uma mudança de paradigma do design. Eileen MacAvery Kane surge por fim com um interesse acrescido relacionado com a temática, tendo a ela dedicado a sua tese, um livro publicado e um website, demonstrando as preocupações morais do presente. Gentilmente cedendo a sua tese [para fins estritamente estudantis], abre-nos um portal de entendimento de como a ética pode ser entendida e dividida [e dividida pelos pontos de entendimento]. Há que entender que a ética é um assunto muito vasto e com vários pontos de contacto, mas que se resume ao sujeito e a um julgamento superior e global; e que, acima de tudo o resto, é tudo uma questão de educação e (auto-) crítica.
MILTON GLASER Do you think this new-found literacy is a result of there being too much professional design?
How has the design field changed since you entered it over forty years ago? The most important change is the acceptance of the fact that design is an absolutely essential part of the process of business, and consequently, that it is too important to leave in the hands of designers.
Do you mean that designers have reverted back to service personnel? How to communicate is determined within or‑ ganizations significantly more than it was when I entered the field. The design process has now been integrated into a client’s control system so that instead of going outside for people who had more understanding about how to commu‑ nicate effectively, they now make their deter‑ minations from a marketing point of view, and then, more often than not, go outside to imple‑ ment those ideas.
I don’t quite understand. Hasn’t this always been true? Clients made determinations and then hired designers to solve their problems. The only difference, it seems to me, is that when you entered in the mid-Fifties, the profession was smaller. Smaller and more amateurish.
Do you mean that the client now has a greater preconception of what is wanted? Much. The briefings are very different now. The determinations of what’s appropriate are very of‑ ten those of a marketing department, as opposed to the somewhat casual and random solutions that occurred when people didn’t know better.
So, are you saying that before design became as sophisticated as it is today, the designer had more license to play and experiment? In a way. An intense professionalization has oc‑ curred, and a hardening of the authority between the client and designer. In the old days, clients would go to somebody like Paul Rand, with the hope that he would invent the form that would communicate what they were not imaginative enough to communicate. Today, they go to a de‑ signer and say, “These are our objectives, this is the vernacular we hope to use, these are the key elements to be expressed,” and so on.
Well, part of it comes from the professionaliza‑ tion of the practice and the fact that there are more people who are more experienced at do‑ ing this than ever before. A consequence of this professionalization is that accidents don’t happen as much, and there is more conformity based on previous success. Accidents are often the oppor‑ tunity that people have for expressing ideas and personal vision.
But doesn’t this contribute to an underground that subverts convention or, at the very least, finds alternative ways of expression through design? Sure. But it’s very important when you talk about design to realize that it is so highly segmented today in terms of objectives and activities that there’s no general definition that applies to the whole field. Those who are outside the com‑ mercial system — who don’t have a practice that helps people sell goods, and use design as a kind of theoretical enterprise (much in the way that painting traditionally explored the possibility for communication and ideas) — are on a different track. Design can certainly be subversive when its subtext is to undermine the assumptions of a po‑ litical or social system, not to mention an artistic one. Frankly, I am nervous about all ideologies, whether it’s the ideology of business or the ideol‑ ogy of Bolshevism. I get nervous in the presence of absolute certainty.
You have admitted that your impetus for becoming a designer was, among other reasons, to bust the Swiss canon, which was dominant in the fifties. Wasn’t that ideologically subversive?
Every emerging generation has to find something to fight against ‑ to energize themselves. You have to have a resistant canon in order to move towards something that’s your own. I understood that the idea of Modernism and the Swiss School was a great theory, but I also understood that I couldn’t adapt to it or do it as well as the practitioners who had already mastered it. So I knew that I had to go elsewhere. And very often, when you go else‑ where, what you want to do is challenge the larger idea. A single way of doing things seemed too doctrinaire, too limiting, when there was so much beauty, so much excitement, so much potential in what the world had already offered. So curiously,
[Push Pin Studio’s] post-historical efforts were to find out what it was in history that was as interest‑ ing as Modernism.
Was that a conscious decision? Part of it was a sense that [modernism] was used up. As the Chinese say, “Everything at its fullness is already in decline.” We were looking at stuff that we had seen for many years, and it wasn’t going anywhere, it was not improving on the original model. It seemed to have limited people enormously in terms of their options. It’s not that you couldn’t do beautiful work within the tradition — and people still do — it was just that in terms of its expressive potential, it seemed to me it had reached its fullness.
Please contrast what you set out to do back then and the rebellion that has occurred in design over the past decade? It’s different in one respect, my great models for what to do were largely historical. For example, I felt that Art Nouveau was a profound movement that had an extraordinary reservoir of ideas con‑ tained within it, that I could still use. I looked at Charles Rennie Mackintosh, for example, and re‑ alized how compelling his ideas were, and how he helped set the stage for the Bauhaus. In other words, why use the Bauhaus as your only model, as the modernists did, when you can see the Arts and Crafts movement, and Mackintosh, Ruskin, William Morris, Frank Lloyd Wright, the Viennese Secession, as well as the Bauhaus as a continuing series of linked ideas.
I presume that you do not believe that the current generation understands the historical continuum? It seems to me that the new intent is not to follow the historical models and understand that this con‑ tinuity is the essential idea that pervades human history and enriches it, but rather to say “There’s nothing there,” and to try to invent something from scratch.
I want to understand what you mean by ignoring history. For example, David Carson, through Beach Culture and Ray Gun, is indicative of one aspect of the experimental phase of contemporary work. He appears to be pushing the envelope, rather than simply ignoring history. Do you think this work lacks an historical framework or understanding?
MILTON GLASER
No, I wouldn’t say that. In trying to broaden the role of typography these experiments are ulti‑ mately beneficial, although knowledge of Dada and Russian constructionist typography would enrich the inquiry. To some extent it represents the same kind of response to a rigid system that serves to energize people by searching for alterna‑ tives. On the other hand, it seems to me that if you are going to be a revolutionary, it’s best to be an informed one.
Is historical ignorance all that detrimental? Don’t we make our own historical context? When I was going to school, Abstract Expres‑ sionism was in its ascendancy, and most of the students began painting Abstract Expressionistly. One of the great attractive qualities of Avant Garde work is that you put yourself in a position where you can’t be easily criticized because one can al‑ ways say that the critics don’t understand the new value system. One of the great attractions of doing Abstract Expressionism for a lot of ordinary kids was that they could not be judged.
And the consequences of that? The consequences were very sad, because once Abstract Expressionism had passed, the adherents were thrown back on their resources, and those who were not trained had nowhere to go. I think that analogy may hold up today: The attractive‑ ness of working in the manner of today’s expres‑ sionistic nihilism is that it looks cool and explores new territory. The bad part is that its surface quali‑ ties can be easily mastered without discipline or understanding. It celebrates the decorative and the expressive at the expense of other things.
What are those other things? Structure, clarity of intent, form, history — all the things one traditionally needed to make judgments. Design is about making judgments. The question is do you train people to be able to judge what is good, what is bad, what is meaningful, what is fraudulent, if they don’t have the understanding of what those ideas have meant historically?
How did you learn?
Hard to say exactly, certainly partially by studying history, living in Italy, learning how to draw aca‑ demically. Staying curious. I also was fortunate in that my practice has been a broad one. But it hasn’t been about “effects”, and it wasn’t primar‑ ily about how things looked when you subjected them to the astonishing capacity of a computer and so on.
How do you feel teaching has changed since you began? Many design teachers don’t seem to understand the degree to which the nature of the audience is really the preeminent influence on Design. The fo‑ cus in Art School is often on Me-Me-Me and ‘My’ Expression and ‘My’ Vision and ‘My’ Career and ‘My’ name it, linked to the delusion that if you reveal your soul, people will be willing to spend money for it.
How do you teach? Well, I try to be very specific and propose that eve‑ ry problem starts with the same question, “Who am I talking to? Who are these people? What do they know? What are their prejudices? What are their expectations?” etc. The three cardinal rules of Design are: Who is the audience? What do you want to say to them? How do you say it ef‑ fectively? If you don’t follow this sequence, you’re always going to make some terrible mistake.
Then where does the personal expression fit? It fits in the cracks — because the drive to express things personally is so profound that no matter how objective the rules, good people want to make it their own! But given the two choices, making it your own and not communicating versus communicat‑ ing and not making it your own, there seems to be very little question about which is the more appro‑ priate role for a designer.
Are you tolerant? They can work any way they want, as long as they are thinking straight. Personally I find it regretta‑ ble that people no longer have the skill to address even a simple problem without the computer. There is no way of preventing its use at this point since even the most rudimentary drawing skill seems to have vanished.
Do you think that reliance on the computer has somehow impaired the thought process? Nobody clearly understands how the use of the computer changes the nature of the way you think. I believe that it does. One way it does that most profoundly is that it gets you much more in‑ terested in ‘effects’ than in content.
Given that design schools have so much to teach in a short time, how does one avoid the quick and easy answers? The question is, what should people be teaching at school, and what is the basis for visual under‑ standing? My conviction is that if you don’t have the bedrock of understanding, you will become a victim of style.
The paradox is that this field feeds on style. And clients are coming to the designer looking for style. It’s a vicious circle. In personal terms, the question becomes, Should you follow each passing style to stay hip and on the cutting edge, even when you recognize that the style of the moment is transitory and trivial? I suppose this question is no different from how you choose to dress at a particular moment in time. One of the social roles of fashion is to de‑ fine generational difference. I assume the same rule applies to the world of design. I would be em‑ barassed to imitate the work that is fashionable now for the same reason that I will not wear my old bell-bottoms when the style returns. The most style-conscious designers inevitably find them‑ selves in a dilemma when the style that made them famous is no longer of the moment and be‑ gins to recede. The larger question might be, How can you retain your interest in doing what you’re doing for a lifetime? How do you stay in this field without becoming a service provider?
So how do you do that? That’s the struggle that every old professional has had to deal with. I’ve had a long career. And the pull has always been the same: How do you stay relevant in this field if the assumptions change?
Well, can you answer the question?
I tried to broaden my understanding so I could do more than one thing, as well as develop new ways of working that didn’t resemble the work I became noted for in the Sixties and Seventies. The moldy smell of a previous decade can destroy you.
Let me ask you, then, about Starbucks [The immensely successful national chain of American coffee-houses]. Consistent with their retro-based corporate identity, they hired you and Victor Moscoso, among others, for your historical or nostalgic style. So do you reject the offer because it makes you into an oldie but goodie, or do you accept it because its a good paying job? That’s a good question. When they gave me the job I had to consciously try to replicate an old style of mine. It was had for me to do it. I couldn’t do it very well in any case. But in this case doing a self-parody seemed okay. I’ve been doing very dif‑ ferent work in recent years, and people who know anything about my work could recognize the dis‑ tinction between something I might do today and a work of self-parody.
Well, the cognoscenti would know. But on the other hand, Starbucks is this huge new phenomenon, building its identity on a certain kind of retro sensibility, and is appealing to an audience that does not know you, and that your work is self-parody. For this time it doesn’t matter. I didn’t think that would have much meaning to either the cogno‑ scenti or the people in the street. I don’t approach any of these jobs indifferently, but my work has gone in another direction. I think the poster I did for the “Art Is” campaign [for the 50th Anniversary of the School of Visual Arts] is much more repre‑ sentative of what I’m doing currently, and I don’t think there is any relationship to my identification as a Sixties icon.
People know Milton Glaser, the sixties and seventies image-maker. How do you sell clients on who you are today? I have a funny and varied collection of clients. I have an entirely different reputation as an edito‑ rial designer, for instance, with my business with Walter Bernard [WBMG], I have a lot of experience designing magazines, which is not linked to my personality in the Sixties at all because, in a sense, my hand is not involved at all, only my brain is.
MILTON wuz
Is it correct to say that you can be more anonymous as a magazine designer? This is where anonymity of the problem has been of great benefit. One of the problems that you have professionally is that once you’ve become exposed too much, you become boring. So you have to be careful if your career is based on celebrity.
Speaking of celebrity, you certainly had it with Push Pin Studios, why did you leave?
The very things that you think are terrible are very often linked to what is valuable. The enlargement of possibilities that exists in terms of extending expressive possibilities in typography through the use of the computer is one current example. The fact that it offers ways of seeing that are dif‑ ferent and challenging is the best part of what has happened. At the same time, these powerful technologies have the capacity to be enormously valuable or enormously damaging. I suppose what worries me is that I can’t see the underlying value system that informs the work around us.
I left Push Pin because it had become too celebrat‑ ed, people knew too much about it, and there was too much expectation built into that identification. The design magazines have become more critical, I wanted to try to do something else that had no they’re not just showcases. There has been more debate. relationship to history. Well, I don’t think it’s so much debate as there’s been argument, which is a little different. I’m not You confided a few years ago that your business sure whether they’re about professional practice was leveling out. Did you have a sense that the as much as they are about egocentricity or selftime was over? promotion. There are a handful of critics who are now dominating the discourse and they are linked Certainly the time that I was hot was over. Actu‑ by an amazingly similar ideology. ally, some years ago at the AIGA [“Dangerous Ideas”] Conference in San Antonio, when I looked out over the audience, mostly people between 30 What implications do that have for the field? and 40. I realized that I had become marginal to It narrows the field of vision. I think that there are the field. more issues in design than expressive typography,
But what does marginal mean? You create beautiful work, you understand the forms, and you’re intelligent about the profession . . . The field has moved in other places. For instance, the field became obsessed about business prac‑ tices, the focus of the field seemed to be entirely about insurance, contracts, documentation, main‑ taining business control, dah-da-dah-da. That was never at the center of my interests. I am not speak‑ ing critically about this change, because it has real reasons to occur. The fact is, I never ran a business in my own mind; I just put people together to help me do things . . .
Like an atelier? Yes, an atelier. It was very important for me to have that model. The idea of business as such was something I dreaded. When we started Push Pin, it was a bunch of guys getting together and doing good things. And I must say, for a long time that really was the spirit of the place; the first ten or fifteen years we were running it like a bunch of art students trying to change history.
What is valuable in the current design?
for instance. For some reason, the big hot issue in design has become typographical manipulation as well as whether its readable or not.
For years there was the call for a critical voice. Now that we’ve got it, is there a way of doing it better? More generosity on everybody’s part. There’s nothing wrong with a critical dimension in our field, but it has taken a peculiar and polarizing di‑ rection that doesn’t serve the profession very well. I think the role of design is so all-enveloping that it’s hard to separate its characteristics critically. Is design a job that gives many people basic employ‑ ment providing a utilitarian product? Is it a craft requiring measurably objective skills that should be maintained? Is it an art that can serve as a po‑ tent means of self-expression? Is it a profession whose members can influence the health and well being of the general public? Is it a discipline that involves a philosophical inquiry into the nature of truth, beauty,and reality? Is it an instrument for social change or manipulation? If the answer is “all of the above”, then I guess I’m looking for a broader critical voice that makes the significant differences between these issues clear. I haven’t heard that voice yet.
here The political strains and appalling musjudgements that led up to the First World War and its aftermath revealed the turmoil of forces underlying modern life: industrial, economic, political and social. Design theorists felt that old ways of thinking and doing could not be stretched to contain these forces: new
mental and physical structures were needed.
This led in part to artists [here artists are understood as craftsmen, designers included] examining their role in society. Were they best used by servicing commerce and, hopefully, increasing wealth for the many — or by producing political propaganda that advocated social upheaval and change? Throughout the last 30 years graphic design has become part of the social landscape, projecting ideas about the nature of “the good life”. Many art students, who might otherwise have studied fine art, have chosen design instead, believing that it will provide creative freedom plus an ensured income. But the allure of perceived self-expression has often diverted atention from the more mundane, but absolutely necessary, importance of content. Graphic design is a potent tool for good and bad, as we can see in war propaganda or political promotion. Truth is an easy victim of power. All the awareness and understanding we now posess have failed to eliminate cruelty, oppression and war. Great works have still to be righted on many fronts in the world community. Pratically every decision we make as designers has an ethical dimension, requiring us all to “balance the forces” in our own small way, as responsive individuals. Lucienne Roberts
In the 1990s rebellious forays into emotion and selfexpression joined an increasing global awareness and a new concentration of production methods in designer’s hands. Together, these forces motivated more and more graphic designers to critically reengage society. As the field shifted toward a more subjective design approach, a social responsability movement emerged in the 1990s and 2000s. Graphic designers joined media activists to revolt against the dangers of consumers culture. Kalle Lasn lauched Adbusters, a Canadian magazine that co-opted the language and strategy of advertising.
Thirty-three prominent graphic designers signed the “First Things First Manifesto 2000” protesting the dominance of the advertising industry over the design profession. Designers began generating content both inside and outside the designer-client relationship in the critique of society. As the new millenium unfolds, graphic designers create within a vast pulsating network in which broad audiences are empowered to produce and critique. This new rational approach incorporates a strong environmental ethos within a quest for business and design models that produce “global harmony and mutual benefit”. Issues of social responsability, like graphic authorship, have also entered graphic design educational curriculum, encouraging students to look beyond formal concerns to the global impact of their work. No longer primarily led by restrictive modern ideals of neutral, objective communication, the design field has expanded to include more direct critical engagement with the surrounding world. Helen Armstrong
SOME OF THE CH TO MAKE THE MO MANUFACTURING THE CREATURE W
HANCES WE TAKE, ONEY WE MAKE, DISEASE WE CAN SEE... Ataxia, “Dust”
When we leaf through graphic design directories, we seldom wonder whether the work we see was paid or credited, or whether the designer was ethically, politically or religiously coerced in any way. Designers somehow manage to keep themselves above the harsher realities of their own society in a plane of abstract, neutral mediation — the very presence of graphic design in any given society may be presented as an index of freedom of expression — yet few people look into the subtle modes of restraint and control that permeate the magazine-lined white cubes of the design studios. Designers tend to see their job as essentially value-free, ethically neutral. All they have to do to keep it that way is follow the rules, do the best job possible, regardless of beliefs and values, their own and their clients’, and the possible outcomes of their work. When designers want ethics, they generally turn to “outside” sources. In other words: design is ethical when it works for ethical clients (NGOs), uses ethical materials (recycled paper) or encompasses ethical subjects (peace demonstrations), while remaining neutral
on all other occasions. The causes named above are undoubtedly worthy – that is not the issue – but we must wonder whether we are in fact objectifying ethics, limiting them to certain accepted practices, while forgetting that design itself is an industrial activity with specific internal ethics and politics that remain largely unobserved. Websites, corporate identities or magazines are, more often than not, designed by surprisingly large groups of people structured in strict hierarchies. The fact that the task itself is creative only makes these hierarchies more tense and difficult to manage. As the work of Italian philosopher Antonio Negri demonstrates, there is an ongoing evolution from industries based on the mass production of commodities (material labour) to modes of production based on intellectual, creative work (immaterial labour). Naturally, this change requires the development of new ways to control a workforce that is radically different from the traditional factory worker. Some of these techniques of control are examined in the works of Edward Said (particularly the Reith Lectures) and Noam Chomsky (Necessary Illusions).
Obviously, these techniques of control have to be embedded in the discourse and methods of every practitioner at every stage of their career. During their formative years, designers undergo a “behavioural conditioning” that effectively blinds them to the industrial nature of their own profession. While at school,
designers are trained to be creative loners who sporadically condescend to be part of a group, whereas in the “real world” they are frequently small cogs in complex corporate machines consisting almost entirely of designers employed in different capacities. Designers are trained to deal with clients who know nothing about design and who only want their problems solved but, in the “real world”, designers deal primarily with other designers; their employers are often designers, their co-workers are often designers. In other words: the client is often a designer. The myth of the designer as a creative loner is an effective way of diverting attention away from the middleman and in fact from the entire labour structure of the design profession that reproduces local – and global – social dynamics and restraints.
A valuable way of connecting design to local realities and problems would be to see it as a concrete job, produced by people who are part of their own society, and vulnerable to its pressures and shortcomings. A better knowledge of how design’s inner workings and tensions diverge locally would undoubtedly contribute to deepen the range of its overall ethical concerns. While it is comfortable to keep ethical, political and social concerns restricted to conveniently external goals, we tend to forget that design has internal ethics and politics. I’m not saying that we should forget the larger picture. My point is that the politics
and ethics of the design workspace are part of that larger picture. Mário Moura
IS IT POSSIBLE TO »» BE A BAD GOOD DESIGNER , OR A GOOD BAD DESIGNER FOR THAT MATTER? Graphic design can be “good” by virtue of its content, its form, or both. However, behaving ethically requires good intentions as well as outcomes. This doesn’t mean self-sacrifice is [always] necessary. Happiness, including your own, is a prerequisite of good design. Constant altruism, for instance, will result in bitterness and despondency. A balance needs to be struck — more greys. We all struggle with alternative understandings of the good life — self-fulfilment versus self-sacrifice — but perhaps the ideal is that they work in tandem, as any reasonable conception of the good life involves both.
Graphic design is a political activity. It gives form to messages. It is a powerful tool because it is so important — it can persuade, educate, even control. Designers have to consider the value of the message, and the form that it takes. Graphic design is in ethical flux, and the debate is still in its infancy. Designers are people. The decisions we make define who we are. Our ethical choises help shape the world. Lucienne Roberts
If we begin by defining ethics according to the dictionary, we can start by looking at ethics as “the rules or standards governing the conduct or members of a profession.” Another listing defines ethics as “a set of principles of right conduct.” Lastly, the dictionary defines ethics as “the study of the general nature of moral choices to be made by a person.” Using these definitions as a starting point, we can use three different lenses to explore and discuss ethics in graphic design: 1) legalities — the rules that govern the profession — copyright law, piracy, plagiarism, photo manipulation 2) integrity — principles of right conduct — spec work, crowd sourcing, responsibility to clients and contracts 3) morality — the general nature of moral choices to be made by a person—sustainability, social awareness, cultural influence. Each one of these is a deep sea of grey matter and can originate great discussion; particularly morality, since it deals with the person’s ethos and who they are, and most of all, how they present themsellves to the world around them. Eileen MacAvery Kane
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In Thank You For Smoking the main character, Nick Naylor, a spokesman for a tobacco company, states, “My job requires a certain… moral flexibility.” While every profession must deal with ethics in its particular field, graphic designers In an article for Design Observer designer and are trained to “make things look good.” The very author William Drentel writes about how ideas nature of their core mission inherently lends itself come from many sources in graphic design: they to a certain “moral flexibility.” Anthony Grayling, recur, regenerate, take new forms, and mutate Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, into alternative forms. In the world of design University of London, and a Supernumerary and photography, there seems to be an implicit Fellow at St. Anne’s College, Oxford, England understanding that any original work can and thinks that asking graphic designers not to will evolve into the work of others, eventually persuade is like asking fishermen not to fish — working its way into our broader visual culture. it’s what they are trained to do. Drentel goes on to talk about how the charge Historically, graphic design has been an agent of plagiarism is not a simple one. He says, of moral and ethical thought. From the Code “Designers should take note: the idea of of Hammurabi to illuminated manuscripts to borrowing ideas is getting more complex the broadsheets used to spread the word of everyday. Inherent in the modern definition of Martin Luther, graphic design has been used originality, though, is that ideas are extended, to visually communicate beliefs and ideas— language expanded, and syntax redefined. to inform, inspire, and delight. During the Take a psychologist’s ideas and experiences, as Middle Ages campaigns like Ars moriendi were explained through the eyes of a journalist, and designed specifically to influence the behavior turn them into a play, a work of fiction—this is of individuals, in this case urging those on their a work of complex, ‘appropriation,’ I believe deathbed from the bubonic plague to leave the design world benefits greatly from such an their money to the church. Soviet propaganda understanding of complexity.” produced after the Russian revolution practically rewrote Soviet history. More recently the Obama Eileen MacAvery Kane branding campaign has been deemed one of the most successful branding campaigns for a political candidate.
<<THIS IS LEFTTHIS IS RIGHT>> IS IT RIGHT?IS IT WRONG?
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The designer’s responsibility to clients 1.1 A professional designer shall acquaint himself or herself with a client’s business and design standards and shall act in the client’s best interest within the limits of professional responsibility. 1.2 A professional designer shall not work simultaneously on assignments that create a conflict of interest without agreement of the clients or employers concerned, except in specific cases where it is the convention of a particular trade for a designer to work at the same time for various competitors. 1.3 A professional designer shall treat all work in progress prior to the completion of a project and all
knowledge of a client's intentions, production methods and business organization as confidential and shall not divulge such information in any manner whatsoever without the consent of the client. It is the designer’s responsibility to ensure that all staff members act accordingly. 1.4 A professional designer who accepts instructions from a client or employer that involve violation of the designer’s ethical standards should be corrected by the designer, or the designer should refuse the assignment. The designer’s responsibility to other designers 2.1 Designers in pursuit of business opportunities should support fair and open competition. 2.2 A professional designer shall not knowingly accept any professional assignment on which another designer has been or is working without notifying the other designer or until he or she is satisfied that any previous appointments have been properly terminated and that all materials relevant to the continuation of the project are the clear property of the client. 2.3 A professional designer must not attempt, directly or indirectly, to supplant or compete with another designer by means of unethical inducements. 2.4 A professional designer shall be objective and balanced in criticizing another designer’s work and shall not denigrate the work or reputation of a fellow designer. 2.5 A professional designer shall not accept instructions from a client that involve infringement of another person’s property rights without permission, or consciously act in any manner involving any such infringement. 2.6 A professional designer working in a country other than his or her own shall observe the relevant Code of Conduct of the national society concerned. Fees 3.1 A professional designer shall work only for a fee, a royalty, salary or other agreed-upon form of compensation. A professional designer shall not retain any kickbacks, hidden discounts, commission, allowances or payment
in kind from contractors or suppliers. Clients should be made aware of mark-ups. 3.2 A reasonable handling and administration charge may be added, with the knowledge and understanding of the client, as a percentage to all reimbursable items, billable to a client, that pass through the designer’s account. 3.3 A professional designer who has a financial interest in any suppliers who may benefit from a recommendation made by the designer in the course of a project will inform the client or employer of this fact in advance of the recommendation. 3.4 A professional designer who is asked to advise on the selection of designers or the consultants shall not base such advice in the receipt of payment from the designer or consultants recommended.
shall represent messages in a clear manner in all forms of communication design and avoid false, misleading and deceptive promotion. 6.3 A professional designer shall respect the dignity of all audiences and shall value individual differences even as they avoid depicting or stereotyping people or groups of people in a negative or dehumanizing way. A professional designer shall strive to be sensitive to cultural values and beliefs and engages in fair and balanced communication design that fosters and encourages mutual understanding.
The designer’s responsibility to society and the environment 7.1 A professional designer, while engaged in the practice or instruction of design, shall not knowingly do or fail to do anything that constitutes a deliberate or reckless disregard for the Publicity health and safety of the communities 4.1 Any self-promotion, advertising or in which he or she lives and practices publicity must not contain deliberate or the privacy of the individuals and misstatements of competence, businesses therein. A professional experience or professional designer shall take a responsible role capabilities. It must be fair both to in the visual portrayal of people, the clients and other designers. consumption of natural resources, 4.2 A professional designer may allow and the protection of animals and the a client to use his or her name for environment. the promotion of work designed or 7.2 A professional designer shall not services provided in a manner that knowingly accept instructions from is appropriate to the status of the a client or employer that involve profession. infringement of another person’s or group’s human rights or property Authorship rights without permission of such 5.1 A professional designer shall not other person or group, or consciously claim sole credit for a design on which act in any manner involving any such other designers have collaborated. infringement. 5.2 When not the sole author 7.3 A professional designer shall of a design, it is incumbent not knowingly make use of goods or upon a professional designer to services offered by manufacturers, clearly identify his or her specific suppliers or contractors that are responsibilities or involvement with accompanied by an obligation that is the design. Examples of such work substantively detrimental to the best may not be used for publicity, display interests of his or her client, society or or portfolio samples without clear the environment. identification of precise areas of 7.4 A professional designer shall authorship. refuse to engage in or countenance discrimination on the basis of race, The designer’s responsibility to the sex, age, religion, national origin, public sexual orientation or disability. 6.1 A professional designer shall avoid 7.5 A professional designer shall projects that will result in harm to the strive to understand and support the public. principles of free speech, freedom 6.2 A professional designer shall of assembly, and access to an open communicate the truth in all situations marketplace of ideas and shall act and at all times; his or her work shall accordingly. not make false claims nor knowingly AIGA misinform. A professional designer
HELLER: I’ve often wondered whether ethics inhibit design. Shouldn’t freedom reign? TENNER: Ethical goals have sometimes stimulated design. The philosopher Otto Neurath developed his Isotype system for presenting vital data in pictographs to enlighten the Viennese proletariat. But socially conscious design can also have unintended consequences. I’ve seen examples of the style adopted by the Nazis. [Design] went through a transitional stage in the 1950s and 1960s, when prominent idealists hoped that symbols could promote cooperation across cultures. Now it is merely the shorthand of global capitalism in airports and train stations and on packaging. More seriously, I’ll bet many 20th-century graphic artists sincerely believed that supporting their dictatorial regimes was the highest ethical commandment. I agree that designers and other creative people can never do their best work or help society in the shadow of a cloud of moral self-doubt or exaggerated political correctness. The results of utopianism have been so dismal that “do as thou wilt” may indeed be the better part of the law. But there are also cautionary tales like that of the Soviet graphic pioneers who were killed in the purges of the 1930s. Patronage helped close their eyes to what was happening around them. Esthetization can be a form of anesthetization.
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A few years ago I had the pleasure of illustrating Dante's Purgatory for an Italian publisher. I was impressed by the fact that the difference between those unfortunates in Hell and those in Purgatory was that the former had no idea how they had sinned. Those in Hell were there forever. Those in Purgatory knew what they had done and were waiting it out with at least the possibility of redemption, thus establishing the difference between despair and hope. In regard to professional ethics, acknowledging what it is we do is a beginning. It is clear that in the profession of graphic design the question of misrepresenting the truth arises almost immediately. So much of what we do can be seen as a distortion of the truth. Put another way, "He who enters the bath sweats." Finally, all questions of ethics become personal. To establish your own level of discomfort with bending the truth, read the following chart: 12 Steps on the Graphic Designer's Road to Hell. Milton Glaser
1. Designing a package to look BIGGER on 2. Designing an ad for a slow, boring fi 3. Designing a crest for a new vineyard 4. Designing a jacket for a book whose S 5. Designing a medal using steel from th 6. Designing an advertising campaign for 7. Designing a package aimed at children 8. Designing a line of T-shirts for a ma 9. Designing a promotion for a diet prod 10. Designing an ad for a political candi 11. Designing a brochure for an SUV that 12. Designing an ad for a product whose f
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n the shelf. ilm to make it SEEM like a lighthearted comedy. to SUGGEST that it has been in business for a long time. SEXUAL CONTENT you find personally repellent. he World Trade Center to be sold as a profit- making SOUVENIR of SEPTEMBER 11. r a company with a history of known discrimination in minority hiring. n for a cereal whose contents you know are low in nutritional value and high in sugar. anufacturer that employs CHILD LABOR. duct that you know DOESN’T WORK. idate whose policies you believe would be HARMFUL to the general public. FLIPS OVER FREQUENTLY in emergency conditions and is known to have KILLED 150 people. frequent use could result in the user’s DEATH.
F1RST TH1NGS Jonathan Barnbrook Nick Bell Andrew Blauvelt Hans Bockting Irma Boom Sheila Levrant de Bretteville Max Bruinsma Siân Cook Linda van Deursen Chris Dixon William Drenttel Gert Dumbar Simon Esterson Vince Frost Ken Garland Milton Glaser Jessica Helfand Steven Heller Andrew Howard Tibor Kalman Jeffery Keedy Zuzana Licko Ellen Lupton Katherine McCoy Armand Mevis J. Abbott Miller Rick Poynor Lucienne Roberts Erik Spiekermann Jan van Toorn Teal Triggs Rudy VanderLans Bob Wilkinson
We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The professionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best. Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse. There are pursuits more worthy of our problemsolving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programmes, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.
S F1RST 20OO We propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design. In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart. Last year the Canadian magazine Adbusters took the unusual step of reprinting a manifesto, 'First Things First', written 35 years ago in London by Ken Garland and signed by 21 other visual communicators. As it turned out, Garland knew nothing about this renewed interest in his call for a 'reversal of priorities in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication.' Adbusters had come across the manifesto in a back issue of Eye (see 'There is such a thing as society' by Andrew Howard, no. 13 vol. 4) and felt that its sentiments had become 'more, rather than less relevant' today. After that, things started to move. Kalle Lasn, editor of Adbusters, showed the issue with 'First Things First' to the late Tibor Kalman, who said: 'We should do this now.' They met Ken Garland himself at their Vancouver HQ. Little by little the idea of a new version of 'First Things First', updated and rewritten for the twenty-first century, began to take shape. Garland gave the project his blessing, but left the writing and organisation of new signatories to Adbusters.
Earlier this year the magazine’s art director, Chris Dixon, read out a preliminary draft during a packed lecture at the Royal College of Art. As the new version and list came together, other magazines were approached to see whether they would act as co-sponsors of the initiative. 'First Things First Manifesto 2000' is being published in its entirety, with 33 signatories’ names, in Adbusters, Emigre and the AIGA Journal in North America, in Eye and Blueprint in Britain, in Items in the Netherlands, and Form in Germany. A poster version will be designed by Adbusters and dispatched to design schools around the world. The aim is to stimulate discussion in all areas of visual communication – in education, in practice, in the organisations that represent design’s aspirations and aims – as well as outside design. The changing relationship of advertising, graphic design, commerce and culture poses some profound questions and dilemmas that have recently been overlooked. If anything, these developments are accepted as an unproblematic fait accompli. In consequence, many young designers have little conception of the values, ideals and sense of responsibility that once shaped the growth and practice of design. The profession’s senior figures, who do, are for the most part quiet. Adbusters’ welcome initiative reasserts these considerations as fundamental to any sensitive interpretation of graphic design’s role and potential. -
Current conversations in graphic design and graphic design education center around transitioning from the traditional role of servicing consumerism to creating graphic design within the themes of social responsibility and sustainability, while creating strategic and critical thinkers. Design professionals and design educators alike acknowledge that graphic design has been undergoing a prolonged identity crisis in regards to whom it should serve and to what end. Integral to this debate is the discussion about the role that graphic designers play as cultural influencers versus the responsibility they bear. With this in mind, a course about ethics should be a logical component of graphic design education. Over the years the required courses have changed to respond to technology and contemporary culture, but there is still a noticeable lack of courses about ethics in graphic design. Results from interviews with graphic design educators and practitioners about what they perceive to be the most important ethical issues in graphic design today reveal the myriad of opinions. When asked what the most important issue is that he thinks graphic design students will face in their careers, author, art director, and educator Steven Heller responded, “Interesting question. The answer is not specific. Every individual will face different concerns. Some will be asked to serve a client they might not like or a product they might not care for, while others might be faced with whether or not to undercut a competitor.
Heller’s answer speaks to the heart of the issue. Ironically, despite such a long list of issues that come up when discussing ethics in graphic design, undergraduate courses directly addressing ethics in graphic design are sorely lacking within graphic design curriculum. Perhaps the reason that ethics is not a requirement in undergraduate graphic design curriculum is that it opens up a Pandora’s box of issues. A survey of twenty different nationally recognized design schools shows that a course about ethics in graphic design is not part of standard graphic design curriculum. Courses in sustainability, social change, and business practices in graphic design are offered at some schools as electives and focus on different aspects of ethics in graphic design, but there are no required courses that directly address the full spectrum of ethics in graphic design. The number of different issues raised by graphic design educators and practitioners validates that ethics is an important topic in the field of graphic design and warrants a course devoted entirely to it.
Students do know that graphic designers play an important role in delivering visual communication. When surveyed, over 75 percent of students said that they think graphic designers have a large of impact on consumers’ buying decisions. They know that their role is an important one in influencing behavior.
There are no universal answers.”
PURGATORY IS WHERE YOU ARE JUDGED AS A PERSON, BASED ON THE CHOICES YOU MADE. BASED ON YOU.
In terms of my thoughts on the topic of ethics in graphic design, the biggest take-away for me was how diverse the topic is, as well as the passion that it elicits. As you can see on my blog, I’ve continued to add topics for discussion. One of the topics about certification elicited a very heated debate on linkedin with over 200 comments I think. I also found that people immediately have a specific topic in mind when you mention ethics in graphic design, but it varies greatly what these topics are. Design professionals leaned toward legal issues — font usage or copyright issues. Although some mentioned issues of integrity, like professionalism and cronyism. Issues of morality — sustainability and social awareness issues, were more likely mentioned by design educators. I also came away with the feeling that people initially think that ethics are black and white and a reflection of their character. When delving into these issues you find how grey and murky the waters really are. For example, courses in Design for Social Responsibility involve doing pro bono work. Yet AIGA and other design organizations are vehemently opposed to spec work and unpaid internships, what’s the clear line between these things? Eileen MacAvery Kane
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Authors’ Glossary Milton Glaser is one of the most influential American graphic designers of the last half century. He has had a long and successful career, being best know for his Bob Dylan poster, and the I Love NY campaign. He is also very enrolled in social and political activities within graphic design. -----------------------------------------------Helen Armstrong is a designer and educator with a phD in English literature. Her interest in the written word as well as in the graphic image has led her to graphic design practice and theory, having established her own company, Strong Design. -----------------------------------------------Lucienne Roberts is a british graphic designer and educator, “highly motivated to work in areas loosely defined as political and social”. She established the sans+baum studio and was a signatory of the First Things First 2000 manifesto. -----------------------------------------------Mário Moura is a portuguese designer and educator, respected for his insight in information design and design theory. He has written numerous essays for many publications and is currently teaching in both of Portugal’s Fine Arts Universities. -----------------------------------------------Steven Heller is a condecorated author, art director and graphic design theorist. He has been involved in Push Pin Studios, AIGA, magazines such as PRINT or EYE, and has been the art director for the New York Times, in addiction to having participated in over 100 books. -----------------------------------------------Edward Tenner is an influential historian of technology and culture, and a founding advisor of Smithsonian Lemelson Center. His interest in art has led him to discuss the role of technology and the social issues inherent in art history. -----------------------------------------------Eileen MacAvery Kane is a graphic artist and digital photographer, as well as a theorist and educator. She teaches digital art and design, and is very enrolled in social and environmental issues in graphic design.
“the good is the enemy of the great”