Grayscale by NC State Master of Graphic Design Program

Fuck Your Design

GRAYSCALE Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not black and white

Winter 2017 Issue #1

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Letter Jack Ratterree

This issue deals with a topic that severs the design community as a whole. Fuck Your Design calls into question design for the sake of design and how everyone has a different perspective. This issue features the opinions of more classic, big name designers than usual such as Paul Rand, Herbert Bayer, and Henry Dreyfuss. The values of these designers clash with the views of upcoming design students and protesters as we start our feature in the 1970s with a piece from Alice Twemlow. Aliceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s article, as well as the First Things First Manifesto also featured, brought light to what design is and how its ideas are mixed with commercial values. The Manifesto featured in this issue was written in 2000 but references the previous First Things First Manifesto written in 1964 in both writing style and call to action. The newer version gives a modern perspective on how the challenges of 1964 are still being faced in todays culture. This issue is of personal significance to me because it challenges the opinions of designers and businessmen whose ideas have been consistently taught to me a true and were uncontested. The image of students pushing against what was taught to them as fact back in the 1970s, against the commercial standard in design, was inspiring to see. After collecting all of this material and pulling quotes from world class designers, I think its humorous in a cynical way how similar the design world almost half a century later. These big wig designers are still being taught as the most important opinion. It shows the topics in this issue are still alive and important today.

In this issue Grayscale Winter 2017

Hacked Protest Objects CARLOTTA WERNER AND JOHANNA SUNDER-PLASSMANN

Is It Ethical for Architects to Build Solitary Confinement Cells? WHITNEY MALLETT

In Search of Ethics in Graphic Design PAUL NINI

Being Good LUCIENNE ROBERTS

I Canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t Talk to You if You Say That ALICE TWEMLOW

Princibles for Decolonized Design Innovation DORI TUNSTALL

What Aspen Knows is All The Questions MALCOLM BROOKES

First Things First Manifesto 2000 MULTIPLE AUTHORS

The Politics of Design PAUL RAND

How to Kill People GEORGE NELSON

Hacked Protest Objects CARLOTTA WERNER AND JOHANNA SUNDER-PLASSMANN

n Istambul night in September 2013. I am not aware that the ongoing Gezi Park protests against Prime Minister Erdoan’s government have shifted to the Asian quarter of the city as I find myself among a crowd. Teargas—my lungs are burning. A guy next to me sprays cleaning agent into his girlfriend’s eyes. I am shocked at this violent attack, but no one else is. Everybody around me seems familiar with this act, and it soon becomes clear why. The pump spray is filled with milk and used to ease the effect of teargas on the eyes. JOSH MACPHEE

During the next few days, I notice many more modified or hacked objects of daily life among the protests. Before I moved back to Germany a year ago, my Turkish friends and I had a common understanding about the use of objects around us. Since the protests started, a new layer of recognition and perception has emerged. Cleaning sprays turn into medical supplies. Paint respirators become teargas protectors, as well as fashionable accessories that identify people as protesters. Later, they become decorative objects in their flats.

Social movements have been recuperating everyday items for as long as capitalism has been producing them. The wooden shoe, or “sabat,” was shoved into early machinery at the advent of the industrial revolution. The mass-produced glass bottle was likely converted into the molotov cocktail early on in its lifespan. And for that matter, the Christian cross is a repurposing of the tool used by the Romans to punish enemies of the state— long before capitalism or mass production.

Goggles, scarves, and plastic bottles with pierced tops have also changed their intended use. The emergence of such modified objects of daily life is an epiphenomenon of the political protests in Istanbul. Born in no time, out of necessity, the new designs help to cope with many different tasks. They protect the body and provide first aid, they allow individuals to communicate events and to organize demonstrations, to identify with or dissociate from a group, and to defend, attack, and provoke.

Designed by an outgunned crowd that faces professional, well-equipped forces, the hacked objects have some common ephemeral features. They are readily and cheaply available, and they appear and disappear as they change their symbolic and practical meaning. Both—and often simultaneously—a direct reaction to and an action in response to the suddenly changing social circumstances, the objects contain certain information about the mode and nature of the protest itself. This includes the level of violence, groupings, organizational forms, ways of communication, information about particularly striking events, social and civic qualities, and the cultural setting. The phenomenon of hacked objects is not unique to Taksim, but appears also around other places. Reflective safety vests identify the members of the self-organized group “Tahrir bodyguards” in Cairo. Their purpose is to protect female demonstrators, as a reaction to the numerous instances

Both—and often simultaneously—a direct reaction to and an action in response to the suddenly changing social circumstances, the objects contain certain information about the mode and nature of the protest itself.

The variety of objects is proof of the creative energies that are released by mass movements, and show the ambivalent effects of these dynamics.

of sexual harassment that occurred during the protests. In Ukraine, selfmade and archaic-looking weapons speak to the brutal violence of this protest-turned-conflict. Some of the altered clubs and bats are decorated with nationalistic writings or Christian symbols, and show the personal attachment of the owner to his object. In Hamburg’s so called “Danger Zone,” toilet brushes became an ironic symbol of unjustified police control. Hours after the screening of a short video on national television that showed a policeman confiscating a toilet brush from someone who had legally obtained it and was doing no harm with it, toilet brushes were instantly sold out and carried into the streets by demonstrators. This event evoked a creative wave of digital image alteration and graphics. The variety of objects is proof of the creative energies that are released by mass movements, and show the ambivalent effects of these dynamics. Which differences and parallels of the protests can be exposed by these objects? How does social media influence the distribution of such objects and their local adaptation?

Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight on December 17, 2010, after being repeatedly harassed by Tunisian authorities. His act galvanized the Tunisian Revolution, the wider Arab Spring, and, in part, the Occupy protests across Europe and America. Although these protests had different goals and consequences, BBC NEWS as designer Carlotta Werner and artist Johanna Sunder-Plassmann highlight here they are Rafael Braga Vieira was convicted for carrying connected through the use of everyday objects bottles containing ethanol, which can be used that have been “hacked” in one way or another. to produce petrol bombs. His lawyers say he Such designs take many different forms and are had cleaning products, and that he will appeal. created for various ends. At first glance, hacked He is the first person in Brazil to be sentenced chemical spray bottles held to protesters’ eyes over the violence that marred the widespread suggest violence, and yet instead they are used protests. Four other people arrested around the to mitigate its effects; in Hamburg, the seemingly same time in Rio remain in jail waiting to find benign toilet brush symbolizes public anger; out whether they will be acquitted or convicted. in Kiev, the baseball bat morphs from playful to punitive design. Bouazizi’s self-immolation underscores the grassroots—and often desperate—nature of these acts; as unrest continues in Syria, Nigeria, Thailand, and elsewhere, protesters will use any means at their disposal, from mundane objects to their own incommensurable lives. The research project “Hacked design in political protests” invites everybody to contribute experiences, images, videos, objects, and stories of participation in global protests, and the designs that have been born in tandem with them. The project will collect, discuss, and reflect on this political and global crowdsourced design process to explore what is currently happening in many parts of the world. A pump spray is not just a pump spray anymore. ▧

Is It Ethical for Architects to Build Solitary Confinement Cells? WHITNEY MALLETT

esterday, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) refused to condemn torture by design. For more than two years, activists have been lobbying the professional association to update its Code of Ethics in order to address spaces that are built to degrade, torture, or kill people.

Raphael Sperry, an architect and the founder of Architects/Designers/ Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR), was leading the fight to get the AIA to take a stance against spaces like solitary confinement cells and execution chambers. Right now, the Code of Ethics addresses issues such as non-discrimination, preservation of cultural history and the environment, and assigning proper credit for work. The Code actually does mention human rights: “Members should uphold human rights in all their professional endeavors,” but does not specify situations where this would apply. In a letter received yesterday, however, AIA President Helene Combs Dreiling wrote that “the AIA Code of Ethics should not exist to create limitations on the practice by AIA members of specific building types. The AIA Code of Ethics AARON BETSKY is more about desirable practices and attitudes than condemnation.”

Members should uphold human rights in all their professional endeavors

As an architect, the bigger you build, the more you have to worry about the moral and ethical consequences of your work. It is one thing to make a house for a single person, or even a small office building, and perhaps tear down a nice old structure or destroy a garden to do so. It is another to use up vast amount of resources in making large buildings, both because of the effect of that expenditure on our environment and its future, and because the kinds of clients who can command such resources have power. Evil dictators and rapacious corporations make the best clients. But at a cost.

Sperry noted that in other fields there is a precedent for what ADPSR was demanding. “Doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses all have codes of ethics that limit professional complicity in human rights abuses that include torture and killing,” he said in response to the AIA’s letter.

For example, The American Medical Association’s (AMA) Code ofEthics states that “physicians must oppose and must not participate in torture for any reason” and its prohibitions include providing services or knowledge that “facilitates the practice of torture.” While neither the AMA or the American Psychologists Association (APA) have formally acknowledged violations of human rights in prisons with practices like extended solitary confinement, there has been debate about the role psychologists had in developing post-911 Bush-era interrogation techniques and having an ethical code that prohibits torture allows the APA a standard by which to judge the rightness of psychologists’ participation.

Sperry wasn’t the only one who felt disappointed that the AIA didn’t want to take a leading role in preventing the construction of spaces, like solitary confinement and execution chambers, that he believes enable human abuses.

When it comes to light that architects are knowingly being employed to design spaces for the execution and torture of human beings, the role of a professional organization should be to prevent further abuses

“When it comes to light that architects are knowingly being employed to design spaces for the execution and torture of human beings, the role of a professional organization should be to prevent further abuses,” explained ADPSR Vice President Lynne Elizabeth. “This is a duty that UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS must have a higher priority than business concerns.” Human rights abuses did not end when the Universal Declaration was adopted. But since then, count- less people have gained greater freedom. Violations have been prevented; independence and autonomy have been attained. Many people — though not all — have been able to secure freedom from torture, unjustied imprisonment, summary execution, enforced disappearance, persecution and unjust discrimination, as well as fair access to education, economic opportunities, and adequate resources and health-care. They have obtained justice for wrongs, and national and international protection for their rights, through the strong architecture of the international human rights legal system.

Prisons are some of the worst offenders of human rights in America, but also a big industry and a money-maker for architecture firms. In California alone, a new prison is builtevery year. Fear of losing some of these contracts is likely the reason the AIA refuses to prohibit their professional members from building spaces that inherently violate human rights. “It is disappointing to me that the AIA is apparently more concerned about potential impact to architecture firm fees than they are about human rights,” said Boston-based architect Shawn Hesse, who is also a board member of the ADPSR, the group lobbying the AIA to make changes.

Sperry’s work has focused around the human rights abuses that occur in prisons. Solitary confinement cells, especially the highly automated ones being designed for supermax facilities, and execution chambers are the spaces that the ADPSR see as most frequently violating human rights. Numerou s studies have documented that solitary confinement has drastic debilitating effects on mental health. Wh i l e o n l y 4 p e rce n t o f p r i s o n e r s i n A m e r i c a a re i n s o l i t a r y co n f i n e m e n t , t h at 4 p e rce n t o f t h e p o p u l at i o n makes up half of pr ison suicides.

While only 4 percent of prisoners in America are in solitary confinement, that 4 percent of the population makes up half of prison suicides.

“Humans are social animals,” explained Sperry. “Human psychology requires interaction with other people to develop a basic sense of self. If you are denied social contact, your mind falls apart and suicide is one of the consequences.” While the ADPSR’s efforts to change the AIA Code of Ethics have failed, Sperry has succeeded in starting a conversation about the ethics of designing these spaces and the role a professional organization has in regulating its member architects, as well as to inform people of the human cost of these designs. “If people are unaware, they can’t try to change it,” said Sperry in June. “Part of our goal is to raise awareness.” While he continues to raise awareness, the AIA’s rejection of ADPSR’s proposed changes was a blow to Sperry. “AIA calls itself a ‘leadership’ organization, it claims that members make decisions in the public interest, and that it stands for architecture improving our communities and our world. Well, human rights is a core part of the better world that we all hope to live in, and AIA just rejected that,” he said yesterday. “This decision is a complete sellout.” ▧

In Search of Ethics in Graphic Design PAUL NINI

ooking for evidence of graphic design ethics and didn’t find much. Well, that’s not entirely true. When I “Googled” the subject I did find the kind of things I expected, such as graduatelevel design seminar courses and undergraduatelevel professional practices courses that touch LUCIENNE ROBERTS on ethical issues. I also found groups of practitioners and educators creating projects where they’ve used graphic Graphic design is a potent tool for good design as an instrument of social change with very positive or bad, as we can see in war propaganda or results. All of these things are worthwhile initiatives, and, political promotion. Truth is an easy victim of by all means, let’s keep them going. power. All the awareness and understanding we now possess have failed to eliminate I’m also happy to report that I found some other, very cmelty, oppression and war. Great wrongs positive efforts out there. The “Design Inquiry” symposium have still to be righted on many fronts in the recently hosted by the Maine College of Art gave world community. Electronic communication participants a rare opportunity to dig deeply into the has now al’most destroyed distance and time, issues surrounding our roles so that we have little excuse for not being as persuasive communicators MILTON GLASER aware of the world’s in consumer culture. There are ills. Practically every also many initiatives to educate decision we make What is truly frightening is the degree to designers to their effect on the as designers has an which lying has become acceptable in our earth’s ecosystem, including ethical dimension, public life. i’m not sure when the word “spin” an excellent publication by requiring us all to replaced “lie” but it is characteristic of how the AIGA that clarifies many ‘balance the forces’ our language has become a way of de ecting of the m i s u n d e r s t a n d i n g s in our own small or distorting reality. We seem to be awash in concerning more sustainable way as responsible lies from business, the government, and almost production practices. individuals. every institution we have traditionally looked to as a source of belief. Our government has embarked on an investigation to determine whether the atrocities performed at Abu ghraib were aberational or systemic. What would be equally important is an examination of whether lying has become systemic in our nation and the way our government speaks to us. the relative lack of public outrage as government and business lies are revealed is troubling, and may indicate how the American sense of what truth is has been profoundly shaped by our most pervasive educational medium, advertising.

I also came across the speech delivered by Milton Glaser at the AIGA 2002 Voice Conference, where he notes that, “In the new AIGA’s code of ethics there is a significant amount of useful information about appropriate behaviour towards clients and other designers, but not a word about a designer’s relationship to the public.” Likewise, in an interview conducted by Martin C. Pedersen, Glaser had this to say in response to a question about the way design is currently taught: “I would change the perception of the purpose of design that is deeply embedded in design education. Because it’s linked to art, design is often taught as a means of expressing yourself. So you see with students, particularly young people, they come out with no idea that there is an audience. The first thing I try to teach them in class is you start with the audience. If you don’t know who you’re talking to, you can’t talk to anybody.”

In the new AIGA’s code of ethics there is a significant amount of useful information about appropriate behaviour towards clients and other designers, but not a word about a designer’s relationship to the public

our single, most significant contribution to society would be to make sure that the communications we create are actually useful to those for whom they’re intended

ANTHONY GRAYLING

Somewhat tellingly, I didn’t find much else that acknowledges our profession’s responsibilities to audience members or users, specifically those who experience the work we create on a daily basis. AIGA has embraced the concept of “experience design,” which by its very nature requires the involvement of audiences and users in the design process. AIGA has also published the Design Business and Ethics series that addresses a number of topics including “Business and ethical expectations for professional designers,” which is referred to above. However, a quick look makes it clear (as Glaser asserts) that our responsibilities to audience members and users has not been substantially addressed in what is otherwise a very well-considered effort. There is certainly nothing wrong with protecting our professional interests and the interests of our clients, and you’ll find content to that effect in most statements of ethical practices created by designer organizations around the world. However, I would argue that our single, most significant contribution to society would be to make sure that the communications we create are actually useful to those for whom they’re intended—and that this concern must be elevated to the same level of importance as those previously discussed. Many of us are quite familiar with the concepts of “audience-centered” or “user-centered” design, but how many of us can honestly claim to routinely include users or audience members in our process of design? While there are clearly segments of our profession that do practice in a more inclusive fashion, the majority of us do not—and that is, to my mind, where our greatest ethical failure as a profession currently lies.

Like everyone else, designers find themselves in a spider’s web of duties - contractual duties, duties to clients, to stakeholders, to colleagues, to themselves and their work, and to society at large. It’s sometimes difficult to serve everybody well while at the same time fulfilling one’s implicit duties to society. I think it legitimate for someone to say that they try their best, and to learn from failures. Money can be a distorting factor in all aspects of life and work, and therefore here too. Technically money should be a neutral instrument that enables things to happen. It’s useful to have a coin in your pocket to buy bread rather than a sack of coal to be exchanged for it. But money too often becomes an end in itself and this can distort some people’s sense of responsibility.

The client’s desire for profits, and our desire for visual sophistication (and peer recognition) should come after the needs of our audiences and users have been met. By putting our “constituents” first—and ourselves last—we might be able to create a more significant ethical model for our profession to pursue. Further efforts to promote environmental responsibility and to employ graphic design as a means of social change are certainly desirable, but so are more effective everyday messages that the majority of us create.

The client’s desire for profits, and our desire for visual sophistication (and peer recognition) should come after the needs of our audiences and users have been met.

So, in an attempt to address the issue raised, I’ve taken the entirely presumptuous step of creating language that outlines our responsibilities to audience members and users. I envision this text as an addition to the AIGA’s existing publication on ethics, which currently includes sections concerning our responsibilities to the profession and our clients. Therefore, I ask the following questions to you, my professional colleagues: What do you think of the sentiments expressed below? Is it necessary for us to have such text included in our code of ethics? Are you willing to join the discussion and help this initiative progress from this point? In the spirit of inclusive design, I personally invite you participate and add your voice to this important topic.

Finally, please note that the fourth and fifth statements below are adapted from the existing Professional Code of Ethics authored by ICSID, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design. As well, the sixth statement is adapted from the Code of Ethics for Professional Communicators created by IABC, the International Association of Business Communicators. Of the many professional codes of ethics referenced in the process of writing this article, these two groups were among the few to include significant statements concerning their responsibilities to the public. The Designer’s Responsibility to Audience Members and Users

Designers must recognize the need to include audience members and users whenever possible in the process of developing effective communications and to act as an advocate for their concerns to the client. The Designer’s main concern must be to create communications that are helpful to audiences and users and that meet their needs with dignity and respect. Any communication created by a designer that intentionally misleads or confuses must be viewed as a negative reflection on the profession as a whole. Designers must not knowingly use information obtained from audience members or users in an unethical manner so as to produce communications that are unduly manipulative or harmful in their effect. ANTHONY GRAYLING

D e s i g n e r s m u st a d vo c ate a n d thoughtfully consider the needs of all potential audiences and users, particularly those with limited abilities such as the elderly and physically challenged.

Designers must recognize that their work contributes to the wellbeing of the general public, particularly in regard to health and safety and must not consciously act in a manner contradictory to this wellbeing.

Designers uphold the credibility and dignity of their profession by practicing honest, candid and timely communication and by fostering the free flow of essential information in accord with the public interest.

A code that says ‘thou shalt’ and ‘thou shalt not’ is inflexible and fits awkwardly with real life, which is complex and protean. Therefore to devise an ethical code for designers, one would do better to say: here are examples of what a responsible and well-intentioned designer might be like; go and do likewise. A list of strict rules would be very difficult to observe in practice, which is always the problem with topdown ethics. The alternative idea of ‘a way of being’ is bottom-up, which rests on individuals being conscious of their involvement in society and the impact they have on it.

To conclude, just having such a statement that we may agree with is not enough. We must now actually do something to improve the current situation. We must develop a sustained dialog with those who experience the fruits of our labors, and recognize that their needs are more important than our own. ▧

Being Good LUCIENNE ROBERTS

or many designers the property of goodness lies primarily in aesthetics. When a work is deemed ‘good’, really what we mean is either that it is to our taste or that we think it has merit for expressing the zeitgeist or being ground-breaking in some way.

This argument runs contrary to the belief that ethical work is necessarily less visually engaging, the result of a misconception that design is a luxury add-on associated primarily with wealth.

However, if we consider aesthetics more deeply, it relates directly to ‘goodness’ in an ethical sense. Is our work good if it engenders happiness, for example — if it adds to someone’s quality of life by making the world a more delightful or RICHARD HOLLOWAY pleasurable place? This argument runs The market is a glorious thing, but it is also contrary to the belief that ethical work is a monster that devours its children. Many of necessarily less visually engaging, the result us, designers included, have to admit to being of a misconception that design is a luxury prostitutes in that sense — selling a talent add-on associated primarily with wealth. on behalf of this great monster, the most Perhaps this belies the notion that being terrifyingly powerful thing on the globe […] an ethical designer requires a self-sacrificial There’s nothing wrong with making money, subjugation of artistic drive, with a resulting and there’s nothing wrong with exploiting dissatisfaction and unhappiness? your talent, but I think you probably need a philosophy that says in addition to that: I’m a Our ethos is expressed both professionally citizen of the world; I want the world to be as and personally but consistency between good a place for me and my children and my the two is sometimes hard. In accepting grandchildren as it can be; so I can’t simply a commission we agree to do a job to the be the hand that draws or the eye behind best of our abilities, on time and within the lens; I also need to be committed and budget. In exchange, we have the right to engaged in other areas. be paid as agreed and not to be hindered

in our job. How then do we justify marking up print and not telling the client, or saying yes to a deadline we know to be unachievable — lying in other words? Easy — because clients think nothing of pulling a job JACQUELINE ROACH at the last minute, are always late themselves and, despite the fundamentally neutral nature When it comes to graphic design, isn’t it better of the exchange of money for services, abuse not to walk away from jobs on ethical grounds, financial power all the time. Is the problem but to ask if there’s some way that you can have that the market decides all? Free pitching, for influence, something you can bring? example, is unethical, in that clients are being given unprotected design ideas for free, but while ours is a buyer’s market it will continue. The market will not determine best practice, so would some kind of otherwise determined code perhaps be useful? The value of considering ethics in any activity lies partly in being forced to question the fundamental nature of things. For designers, the eye may be the window of the soul — but one that is looking out rather than in. ▧

Fuck Your Design I canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t talk to you if you say that ALICE TWEMLOW

Princibles for Decolonized Design Innovation DORI TUNSTALL

What Aspen Knows is All The Questions

REYNER BANHAM JEAN BAUDRILLARD HERBERT BAYER HENRY DREYFUSS PAUL RAND

MALCOLM BROOKES

First Things First Manifesto 2000 MULTIPLE AUTHORS

The Politics of Design LORETTA STAPLES STEVEN HELLER MICHEAL ROCK ANDREW HOWARD COSIMO BIZZARRI

PAUL RAND

Design rides upon the back of an industrial complex which exists primarily to satisfy such desires of man as universal glitter. REYNER BANHAM

History T he International Design Conference at Aspen was conceived in 1951 as a highaltitude meeting for designers and businessmen in which to discuss the shared interests of culture and commerce. The conference was founded by Walter Paepcke and Egbert Jacobson, president and art director, respectively, of the Container Corporation of America, a Chicago packaging company. The first conference, in June 1951, assembled many of the era’s most-respected designers, artists, and architects as well as the executives of America’s most prominent corporations in order to discuss from both perspectives the issues relating to the integration of modern design and business. More specifically, the conference organizers sought to encourage business executives to embrace corporate identity design and to apply it cohesively throughout their entire organizations, from

Design rides upon the back of an industrial complex which exists primarily to satisfy such desires of man as universal glitter. So why shouldn’t man get what he wants? What justification is there for the designer’s moralistic conscience? Since the times of that lovable Victorian nut, A. W. N. Pugin, and his pretension that the revival of a truly Christian or pointed architecture could bring back the age of faith that he supposed to have been in full swing when pointed or Gothic architecture appeared first time round . . . design theorists and worriers over the state of the art have insisted that style betrays the moral intention of the designer. Art Nouveau equals decadence; expressionism equals selfishness; white walls and flat roof equal care for functional performance; glass boxes equal inhuman disregard for people; chromium brightwork equals commercial swindler; and so forth. None of these propositions is demonstrably true. Each has been, and many still are, passionately believed in or persist as universal prejudices. Yet we know that many flat-roofed and whitewalled modern buildings were indifferently designed for functional performance. Or, again, when General Motors came up with the neat, sweet, almost chromefree body shell of the PAUL RAND first Corvair, moralising design critics decided Detroit was mending Design is a problem-solving activity. It its ways. Yet this is provides a means of clarifying, synthesizing, the model that Ralph and dramatizing a word, a picture, a product, N a d e r a n d a l l t h e or an event. A serious barrier to the realization litigants assert is a of good design, however, are the layers of death-trap designed by management inherent in any bureaucratic GM with its eyes open. structure. For aside from the sheer prejudice It seems that the glitter or simple unawareness, one is apt to encounter of a morally sound style such absurdities as second guessing, kowdoes not guarantee a towing, posturing, nit-picking, and jockeying stainless reputation to for position, let alone such buck-passing institutions as the committee meeting and the product in use. the task force. At issue, it seems, is neither malevolence nor stupidity, but human frailty.

letterhead and advertising to truck livery and office design, as had been done at the Container Corporation of America and at Olivetti, which had an exhibition at the conference. Its loftier aim was to imbue businessmen with cultural responsibility, part of Paepcke’s larger mission to elevate culture within American society. Two hundred and fifty designers and their spouses attended the first conference, at which top-billed speakers included, on the business side, Stanley Marcus, president of Neiman Marcus, Andrew McNally III of Rand McNally, Harley Earl of General Motors and Hans Knoll, President of Knoll Associates. Representing design and architecture were Josef Albers, then a teacher at Yale University, the architect Louis Kahn, industrial designers and architects Charles Eames and George Nelson, and graphic artists such as Leo Lionni, Ben Shahn and Herbert Bayer.

yAfterB math attle-scarred but ultimately resilient was the institution of the International Design Conference at Aspen. It remained under IDCA’s leadership until 2005, when the American Institute of Graphic Arts assumed its administration. But the 1970 conflict did have serious consequences for the individuals as well as the institutions involved. Noyes, like Bass, expressed his frustration at his inability to communicate and reason with his critics. In a filmed discussion with Bass before the board meeting began, Noyes appeared bemused and upset; he scratched at his arms and his eyes wandered as he attempted to make sense of the palpable change in the conference atmosphere, and the unfamiliar demands of its new population. “All those resolutions at the end had nothing to do with the subject of the conference,” he claimed. “This is the politicizing — I believe that’s the word — of

the Aspen Design Conference. And I am not a political guy. I’m not interested in becoming a political guy. I’m interested in making my points through my work. I don’t play games with this kind of thing. I just can’t. It’s not in me” (IDCA: 70). Hitherto he had been the hip spokesman for pop and had prided himself on his ability to identify and characterize emerging trends and aspects of design considered taboo by the design establishment. Now that the qualities he had famously celebrated, such as expendability and surface styling, were being questioned, Banham found himself, possibly for the first time, out of sync with the zeitgeist. Furthermore, his critical methods and approaches, which for the past decade had been considered unconventional, even revolutionary, were, in this new environment, no longer particularly relevant or effective.

JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Today, when new and larger contradictions affect the internal structures of the overdeveloped countries and force them, all together, on a world scale, into opposition with the underdeveloped countries, the system comes up with a worldwide ideology that could remake the holy union of mankind, beyond class discrimination, beyond wars, beyond neo-imperialistic conflicts. Once again, this holy union created in the name of environment is nothing but the holy union of the ruling classes of the rich nations. In the mystique of human relations, it was a question of recycling, REYNER BANHAM readapting, and reconciling both individuals and groups to the social The environment covers all disciplines. It context given a does not interest me to touch everything, it’s norm and as ideal. too big, too important. And besides, what In the mystique of kind of education can we offer to the future: environment, it is a environmental operators? All this seems to me matter of recycling, to be a false problem. readapting, and reintegrating the individual in the context of nature given as an ideal. Compared with the preceding ideology, this one is even more regressive, more simplistic, but for that reason even more efficient. Social relations with their conflicts and history arc completely rejected in favor of nature, with a diversion of all energies to a boy scout idealism, with a naive euphoria in a hygienic nature. Problems of design and environment only look like objective ones. In fact, they are ideological problems.

HERBERT BAYER

Created to be a link between designers, industrialists and the government, the IDCA has become, for two years, a mere meeting of professionals where everything that is discussed is in terms of money. Becoming too broad and coming back too often, it loses as an audience and does not find enough material to hold such frequency. I D C A w i l l d i e i f it does not

HENRY DREYFUSS

I suggest that we’re frequently confusing ornament with design. We yield to various pressures, or sometimes plain intellectual laziness, to deliver things that maybe serve some basic need, but which we make cumbersome, expensive and ugly by coating them with the coop of fad, fashion and gimmickery. Some of our number are running the risk of being remembered as the twenty-first century’s junk dealer’s best friend. The abuse of ornament is my first concern. As my second, I suggest we carry a heavy burden of responsibility to both present and future when we are careless. The difficulties and responsibilities of designing for a mass-market, mass production society arise from the fact that we must do all this in

a period of utterly fantastic technological change.... Here is where we might put the computer to good use. One of these days we will become sufficiently resourceful to form a ‘trust’ to which all disciplines will contribute their input of constant change. Architects and industrial designers alike will consult this vast computer, this oracle which will present the latest technological information as it applies to a particular problem.

IDCA will die if it does not change.

Princibles for Decolonized Design Innovation

esign of design anthropology is theoretically indebted to two areas of design theory and practice. The first is the design thinking exemplified in the works of such indigenous practitioners as Indian M. P. Ranjan, Zimbabwean Saki Mafundikwa, and Pi’ikea Clark. M. P. Ranjan clearly articulates a view of designing to which design anthropology seeks to speak directly: Here we are proposing that the design action takes into account the structure of society along with their macro aspirations, their histories and cultural preferences as a starting point and from here build imaginative approaches for products, services and systems that would include the meta-system, the infrastructure, the hardware, the software and the processware to ensure a perfect fit to the circumstances and requirements of the particular situation. (2011: sec. 1, par. 4) The approaches advocated by these and other scholars provide alternatives to the classifications and representations that see design primarily as a modern Western phenomenon by showing the long history of making in these communities. This provides another principle for design anthropology: One should seek to eliminate false distinctions between art, craft, and design in order to better recognize all culturally important forms of making as a way in which people make value systems tangible to themselves and others. The second area of design thinking and practice is the Scandinavian cooperative and participatory design (B!,?Sdker, Ehn, Sjogren, and Sundblad 2000; Buur and Bagger 1999). The results of the 1980s Utopia project as described by Bsisdker et al. inform design

anthropology’s focus on “staging active design exercises such as the organisational tool-box and use of mock-ups and prototypes as a way to involve end users in design” (2000: 3). The work of Jacob Buur’s SPIRE research group has advanced these ideas to define the praxis of participatory innovation. The principle that it provides to design anthropology is: Re s e a rc h e r s a n d d e s i g n e r s ought to create processes that enable respectful dialogue and relational interactions such that everyone is able to contribute their expertise equally to the process of designing and those contributions are properly recognized and remunerated.

Researchers and designers ought to create processes that enable respectful dialogue and relational interactions such that everyone is able to contribute their expertise equally to the process of designing and those contributions are properly recognized and remunerated.

These two principles can be glossed as ensuring processes of inclusion into the formation of design concepts, prototypes, and implementation such that the benefit of designing originates and ends with the groups involved, especially the most vulnerable group members. Here the Aboriginal Smart Art project again proves illustrative. By seeking to embed the values of Aboriginal ways of visual culture as storytelling into a design project, the Aboriginal Smart Art project collapsed the distinctions between art, design, and craft. Herman Pi’ikea Clark states that by creating the concept of art “no other preindustrial society or culture in the world established a disassociated category for aesthetic objects as did Western European society” (2006: 3).

One should seek to eliminate false distinctions between art, craft, and design in order to better recognize all culturally important forms of making as a way in which people make value systems tangible to themselves and others.

While still using the term art, the Aboriginal Smart Art project attempts to transform aesthetic objects back to what Clark describes as their preindustrial roles as repositories, transmitters, and vehicles in the exploration and construction of knowledge (2006: 4). Aligning with the fifth principle of design anthropology, the project’s two presentations and scenario codesign workshop created inclusive interactive forums in which Aboriginal artists, art coordinators, art collectors, business, technology, and design experts could contribute their knowledge to inform multiple scenarios for how the Aboriginal Smart Art processes might work.

For the mid-semester presentations of learning from secondary research, the team used writing on sticky notes and directly on display banner posters to facilitate discussions of further directions for research to inform scenario planning. The scenario mapping and evaluation workshop demonstrated to the student team, the participating client, and the technical experts how complex and diverse were the possible solutions to the project’s challenges. In the final semester presentation, participants, including Aboriginal artists, helped select which one of the three concepts the group will continue developing in phase two of the project. This process of inclusion will continue throughout phases two and three of the project. The ultimate criteria for success of any design anthropological engagements are the recognized creation of conditions of compassion among the participants in a project and in harmony with their wider environments. ▧ DORI TUNSTALL

What Aspen Knows is All The Questions

here is no such thing as the absolute master plan, if we believe in man’s dynamic unpredictability. To deny it is to drive out people and destroy animation that gives real meaning to the city.... We have come through an era in education when the so-called scientific approach, or objective method, was an either/ or war, with the designer representing the emotional side. No doubt the great misused warcry was ‘form follows function’. We are just waking up to the fact that even the great form masters were often pretty blase about function; and that their idea of function in the past will certainly not be ours in the future. “No, I have a position in all this: I am quite aware that we do need planning, and research, and objectivity, and all those attitudes that prove we have an intellect and can use it. I maintain it is needed but it is notenough: it simply won’t do the whole job. As architects and designers we should no longer have to boast about our cleanpurehonest-truthful structures, and our conscientious functionalism. All that proves is that we were properly toilet trained, and maybe at this advanced age we should take that for granted and move on. For in spite of our irreproachable upbringing, we are still spoiling the environment; and the patient is dying before our sinless eyes.”

It is fair to say the majority of speakers recognised the modern shift in emphasis from preoccupation with things to preoccupation with people. The brave ones referred to systems design or situation design or environmental design; the timid ones spoke about truth, beauty, God, mother and country. Which really amounted to the same thing. However, there was no agreement between the camps of methodology and emotion: the gulf was as wide as, if not wider, than ever, and feelings were remarkably high mainly because one side does not listen carefully enough to what the other side is saying.

No doubt the great misused warcry was ‘form follows function’. We are just waking up to the fact that even the great form masters were often pretty blase about function; and that their idea of function in the past will certainly not be ours in the future.

He entered a strong plea for the involvement of man with design, an involvement which it is up to designers to express. Human scale was the common ingredient of our blight and chaos in all its forms.

Finally, was it worth while? Is this what I expected from Aspen? One bewhiskered and e m i n e n t p e r s o n s u g g e ste d to me that Aspen had been tripped up by its own image: I had expected, like some of the obviously disgruntled students from the Royal College of Art, to sit at the feet of my Aspen masters and collect a few scraps of wisdom. But at the time, Aspen just seemed to turn into another of those infernal design conferences where “we shall not give any answers, but you can expect us to raise questions.”

Is it not time that we got a few answers? Shouldn’t we select a very few of the questions and really thrash them out, as the other professions do? Isn’t this one reason why designers find it hard to establish professionalism? Isn’t this just another manifestation of the all-output, noinput syndrome of traditional design education? Isn’t this problem raising kick symptomatic of a malignant professional paranoia? After all, anyone can questionise (like this) for hours on end, but it’s a bit harder to answerise. ▧ MALCOLM BROOKES

First Things W First Manifesto 2000 e, 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 profession’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 problem-solving 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. 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.

JONATHAN BARNBROOK NICK BELL

ANDREW BLAUVELT HANS BOCKTING IRMA BOOM 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

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. ▧

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

The Politics of Design

o secret that the real world in which the designer functions is not the world of art, but the world of buying and selling. For sales, and not design are the raison d’etre of any business organization. Unlike the salesman, however, the designer’s overriding motivation is art: art in the service of business, art that enhances the quality of life and deepens appreciation of the familiar world. Design is a problem-solving activity. It provides a means of clarifying, synthesizing, and dramatizing a word, a picture, a product, or an event. A serious barrier to the realization of good design, however, are the layers of management inherent in any bureaucratic structure. For aside from the sheer prejudice or simple unawareness, one is apt to encounter such absurdities as second guessing, kow-towing, posturing, nit-picking, and jockeying for position, let alone such buck-passing institutions as the committee meeting and the task force. At issue, it seems, is neither malevolence nor stupidity, but human frailty.

to the ultimate decision-maker is possible, trying to produce good work is very often an exercise in futility. Ignorance of the history and methodology of design — how work is conceived, produced, and reproduced — adds to the difficulties and misunderstandings. Design is a way of life, a point of view. It involves the whole complex of visual communication: talent, creative ability, manual skill, and technical knowledge. Aesthetics and economics, technology and psychology are intrinsically related to the process. O n e o f t h e m o re co m m o n problems which tends to create doubt and confusion is caused by the inexperienced and anxious executive who innocently expects, or even demands, to see not one but many solutions to a problem. These may include a number of visual and/or verbal concepts, an assortment of layouts, a variety of pictures and color schemes, as well as a choice of type styles. He needs the reassurance of numbers and the opportunity to exercise his personal preferences. He is also most likely to be the one to insist on endless revisions with unrealistic deadlines, adding to an already wasteful and timeconsuming ritual. Theoretically, a great number of ideas assures a great number of choices, but such choices are essentially quantitative. This practice is as bewildering as it is wasteful. It encourages indifference, and more often than not produces results which are neither distinguished, interesting, nor effective. In short, good ideas rarely come in bunches.The designer who voluntarily presents his client with a batch of layouts does so not out prolificacy, but out of uncertainty or fear. He thus encourages the client to assume the role of referee. In the event

Design is a problemsolving activity. It provides a means of clarifying, synthesizing, and dramatizing a word, a picture, a product, or an event. A serious barrier to the realization of good design, however, are the layers of management inherent in any bureaucratic structure.

Th e s m o o t h f u n c t i o n i n g o f the design process may be thwarted in other ways, by the imperceptive executive, who in matters of design understands neither his proper role nor that of the designer; by the eager but cautious advertising man whose principal concern is pleasing his client; and by the insecure client who depends on informal office surveys and pseudo-scientific research to deal with questions that are unanswerable and answers that are questionable. Unless the design function in business bureaucracy is so structured that direct access

of genuine need, however, the skillful designer is able to produce a reasonable number of good ideas. But quantity by demand is quite different than quantity by choice. Design is a time-consuming occupation. Whatever his working habits, the designer fills many a wastebasket in order to produce one good idea. Advertising agencies can be especially guilty in this numbers game. Bent on impressing the client with their ardor, they present a welter of layouts, many of which are superficial interpretations of potentially good ideas, or slick renderings of trite ones.

Stubborness may be one of the designer’s admirable or notorious qualities (depending on one’s point of view) — a principled refusal to compromise, or a means to camouflage inadequacy. Design cliches, meaningless patterns, stylish illustrations, and predetermined solutions are signs of such weakness. An understanding of the significance of modernism and familiarity with the history of design, painting, architecture, and other disciplines, which distinguish the educated designer and make his role more meaningful, are not every designer’s strong points.

Deeply concerned with every aspect of the production process, the designer must often contend with inexperienced production personnel and time-consuming purchasing procedures, which stifle enthusiasm, instinct, and creativity. Though peripherally involved in making aesthetic judgments (choosing printers, papermakers, typesetters and other suppliers), purchasing agents are for the most part ignorant of design practices, insensitive to subtleties that mean quality, and unaware of marketing needs. Primarily and rightly concerned with cost- cutting, they mistakenly equate elegance with extravagance and parsimony with wise business judgement.

The designer, however, needs all the support he can muster, for his is a unique but unenviable position. His work is subject to every imaginable interpretation and to every piddling piece of factfinding. Ironically, he seeks not only the applause of the connoisseur, but the approbation of the crowd.

These problems are by no means confined to the bureaucratic corporation. Artists, writers, and others in the fields of communication and visual arts, in government or private industry, in schools or churches, must constantly cope with those who do not understand and are therefore unsympathetic to their ideas. The designer is especially vulnerable because design is grist for anybody’s mill. “I know what I like” is all the authority one needs to support one’s critical aspirations. Like the businessman, the designer is amply supplied with his own frailties. But unlike him, he is often inarticulate, a serious problem in an arena in which semantic difficulties so often arise. This is more pertinent in graphic design than in the industrial or architectural fields, because graphic design is more open to aesthetic than to functional preferences.

Meaningful design, design of quality and wit, is no small achievement, even in an environment in which good design is understood, appreciated, and ardently accepted, and in which profit is not the only motive. At best, work that has any claim to distinction is the exception, even under the most ideal circumstances. After all, our epoch can boast of only one A.M. Cassandre. ▧

His work is subject to every imaginable interpretation and to every piddling piece of fact-finding. Ironically, he seeks not only the applause of the connoisseur, but the approbation of the crowd.

Similarly, the skilled graphic designer is a professional whose world is divided between lyricism and pragmatism. He is able to distinguish between trendiness and innovation, between obscurity and originality. He uses freedom of expression not as a license for abstruse ideas, and tenacity not as bullheadedness but as evidence of his own convictions. His is an independent spirit guided more by an “inner artistic standard of excellence” than by some external influence. At the same time as he realizes that good design must withstand the rigors of the marketplace, he believes that without good design the marketplace is a showcase of visual vulgarity. The creative arts have always labored under adverse conditions. Subjectivity emotion, and opinion seem to be concomitants of artistic questions. The layman feels insecure and awkward about making design judgments, even though he pretends to make them with a certain measure of know-how. But, like it or not, business conditions compel many to get inextricably involved with problems in which design plays some role.

For the most part, the creation or effects of design, unlike science, are neither measurable nor predictable, nor are the results necessarily repeatable. If there is any assurance, besides faith, a businessman can have, it is in choosing talented, competent, and experienced designers.

PAUL RAND

COSIMO BIZZARRI

Writing a manifesto is to some degree an act of narcissism. It implies the fact that one is so convinced of his or her own ideas that somebody else will want to follow them as rules of life. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While selfcentred personalities can be arrogant, unreasonable, and blind to other people’s opinions, they can also be considered extremely brave, stimulating, and contagiously passionate about what they do. You need a big character to point out what has been missing, or, even better, to point out what was under everyone’s nose when nobody knew how to articulate it. All the design manifestos we’ve bumped into in the last two years have been written by someone bold enough to believe that someone would follow his or her maxims. Some sound void and fluffy. STEVEN HELLER Others vibrate with wisdom and passion. The latter are those During the turbulent teens and we have selected for cantankerous twenties artists’ “Manifesto.”. manifestos were as common as

All the design manifestos we’ve bumped into in the last two years have been written by someone bold enough to believe that someone would follow his or her maxims.

weeds, and just as fast to sprout up from a groundswell of radical activity. Manifestos were statements of purpose, calls to action and weapons of mass obstruction. Words were the lethal ammunition. Sometimes they were aimed with pinpoint intelligence, other times they sprayed the battlefield with rampant stupidity. Manifestos came in all degrees of simplicity or complexity. They were long or short depending on the writer’s proclivities. Some survived, others are long forgotten—and the better for it. All tried to make a mark. Today manifestos are back. Artists who have decided it is their respective mission to save the world, or even those who have less ambitious goals, routinely turn first to a manifesto—a statement of principles—and then to their art forms to state how, why and where. As they were in the teens and twenties (and thirties and forties and fifties and sixties, etcetera), some manifestos are worth the paper they are written on, while others are not worthy of the trees they destroyed (perhaps a manifesto about manifestos is due). Yet even the most worthy often have a hollow ring. No matter how smart the manifesto may be, words are empty without action to support them.

LORETTA STAPLES

Despite the earnest, well-intentioned re-declaration of the manifesto —an attempt to kick-start design into the new millennium— I remain skeptical. A significant portion of the design profession proves, day-in and day-out, its inability to engage complex critical topics-an inability most clearly conveyed in the lack of self-critique that characterizes the very profession and all its official organs. Witness the homogeneous profusion of design magazines, conferences, professional organizations, and annual awards through which it publicizes and sustains itself (not to mention omni-present corporate sponsorship). This describes the discursive space of design—the institutional delimiters that define our profession.

Yes, “there are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills [ t h a n a d ve r t i s i n g a n d m a r ke t i n g ] .” Yes, “unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention.” Yes, “many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.” Or do they?

The form of economic organisation we refer to as capitalism ceased long ago to be simply that, and has become a means of organising the consciousness necessary for that economic system to flourish.

ANDREW HOWARD

It is crucial that we recognise that there is a direct correspondence between the condition of our culture and the ways we organise the production of materials. The form of economic organisation we refer to as capitalism ceased long ago to be simply that, PAOLO DEGANELLO and has become a means of organising the consciousness So in that noble mission, necessary for that economic product design cannot system to flourish. As designers simply rely on its own whose work is concerned with good intentions. We the expression and exchange must not accept the of ideas and information and marginalisation of aesthetics into the luxurious the construction of the visual one-off piece. We must promote massvocabulary of day-to-day produced consumer goods as the only ones culture, we must establish a that have any social effect, and the only way perspective on where we fit to drastically reduce the waste of resources, into this scheme. We must ask whilst restoring productive autonomy to so in what ways our function helps many regions that were dispossessed for the to organise consciousness. sake of Western affluence. We must also discover to what extent and in what ways the solutions, vocabularies, and dialogues that we are able to conceive and construct are determined for us. The ‘First Things First’ manifesto was an attempt at least to address these issues. MICHEAL ROCK

If there was any worry that our vast design industry stockpiles of political naivete were dwindling, one need look no further than Emigre #53 for reassurance of their inexhaustible abundance. The feature article, Saving Advertising, coupled with the continuing responses to First Things First manifesto, stand as testimony to the ascendancy of over-simplification and the decline of nuance.

Its conclusions, however, fall short of what seems necessary. Written at a time when the highintensity market was establishing itself at the heart of the design profession in Britain, it was perhaps a last-ditch attempt to hold back the flood of ‘gimmick merchants, status salesmen, and hidden persuaders’. It starts off in a forcible and radical manner. But at the beginning of the fourth paragraph it extinguishes its own flames when it says, ‘We don’t advocate the abolition of high pressure consumer advertising: this is not feasible’ — without making clear whether or not this is perceived as desirable. After its declaration of a rebellion against the techniques and apparatus of high-pressure consumer advertising, there is a trace of retreat here, despite the fact that it would probably be defended as ‘realism’.

It is remarkable that design and advertising workers are so conflicted about the value of their work, so intent on the radical reformation of the professions they practice. Perhaps that deep dissatisfaction is a by-product of an education system that promises more than the industry can deliver. Perhaps that anxiety is the lingering effect of a variety of modern ideologies that suggested that designers were either artists, free of the chains of commerce, or agents of progressive social engineering. Whatever the root cause, the worrisome aspect is that we don’t seem to be developing any useful theory to lead us through this maze. As a result we continue to get the lite-radicalism Emigre and Ad Busters have popularized.

How to Kill People GEORGE NELSON

esign is the process through which things acquire meaningful form. A bird in flight has meaningful form it looks as though it had been designed to fly. A designer is a person who gives shape to manmade things. If he is a good designer, his products will not only work, but they will seem beautiful as well. Designers create things for people. This means that to function successfully, to produce works of art, designers must have society’s approval of what they are doing. Design for killing is interesting because war occupies so much of our attention, and re—ceives our unquestioning support. The great advantage for the designer in this area is that nobody cares what anything costs. This attitude has been prevalent from the siege of Troy to the bombing of Hiroshima. And it’s this kind of attitude towards money that has always attracted creative people. This is the reason, probably, that the design of beautiful and efficient weapons ALICE RAWSTHORN has progressed continuously, without serious interruption. What we’ re One problem is Nelson’s apparently talking about is killing - but not unquestioning conviction that murder, for murder is of no interest governments are entitled to to the de—signer. Murder weapons are go to war, and that society will almost always improvised: a bathtub, support them. Equally disturbing a breadknife, a clothesline. What we is his insistence on distinguishing are talking about is the kind of killing between what he calls “the respectable kind that is supported by society. ▧ of killing” (his euphemism for governmentsanctioned warfare) and “murder.” He seems so dazzled by the colossal investment in the design of military gizmos that he assumes everyone else is too. And he fails dismally to address one of the most important, albeit tortuous aspects of the design of weaponry or anything else: the designer’s moral responsibility towards the outcome of his or her work.

Design for killing is interesting because war occupies so much of our attention, and receives our unquestioning support.

What we’re talking about is killing but not murder, for murder is of no interest to the designer.

Not until there is a consensus that design has much more to offer—by applying the design process strategically to help to develop more effective alternatives to military conflict, for example, or to create fairer, more productive societies whose citizens are less likely to fall prey to tyranny—will we derive the full benefit of design’s power to save lives, rather than to destroy them.