Do Good Design
Gaspard Durance L3A
We are surrounded by graphic messages. It is so much integrated in modern life: from advertising billboards to logos on our clothes, that mostly, we register their codes only at a subconscious level. On this omnipresent backcloth, graphic designers compete to draw our attention. They can get it in a direct and striking way, or try to deceive us with a visual ambiguity or double-coded meanings. In this ocean of information and images, those who succeed best in «hanging on” us are the ones who induce us with an intelligent content, a quirky and smart humor, or more rarely a real inventiveness in the shape. But the graphic design was used cynically for too long to incite industrialized countries to consume more than what they needed, while in developing countries millions of people were and are lacking everything. To make matters worse, those non-essential products are often made in illegal workshops by the members the most deprived of our global society. Graphic designers are too often helping companies to emphasize their brands, by erasing these disturbing details. Rather than selling questionable products, they could put their sharp sense of the communication in the service of social and ecological concerns. Above all, graphic designers should recognize the particular responsibility, not only towards their customers, but also towards the company society in general. The strength of conviction of the graphic design could radically alter the way people think about the issues for the future, from global warming to third world debt. Although not all work done by graphic designers falls into the realm of ethical decision-marketing, the profession still needs to tip the balance from the commercial to remain a relevant and new cultural force. In my communication, I prefer to stage the most various persons as possible to represent all human diversity, no more « women-object », to sell luxury cars. No more kids more or less exploited by their parents and the system. I would like to represent a normal human and definitely not a famous actor because my message is to impact everybody. And hurt nobody.
What matters to me in my work is that it is original, appropriate, and never condescending. My objective is to reach a healthy balance between some strategically effective but still environment-friendly graphics and a style that pushes, in a creative way, the limits of aesthetic as the ones bound with the choice of media. Ideally, I’d like to use my skills to assume a shape of social responsibility, because I realized that graphic designers are saturating the streets of our cities with omnipresent and insignificant images. My main objective is to touch somebody’s heart with design.
for example :
BAD DESIGN
GOOD DESIGN