UNICEF
Children around the world are having their rights denied every day. UNICEF is working in 193 countries to protect these rights making sure children’s voices are heard and listened to. UNICEF relies on voluntary donations to fund our vital work for children and their rights. They receive no funding from the UN budget. UNICEF UK raises funds for these programmes through donations, the sale of cards and gifts, partnerships with companies and special events.
UNICEF story: Shumon 13, lives in a slum in Bangladesh and works seven hours a day making pots in an aluminium factory. Unlike other children his age, he has no time to go to school. “At work I sometimes hurt my hands, which is really painful.” He is under pressure to work fast because he is paid by the number of pots he can produce and his family desperately needs the money.
Is this ethically correct?? Of course it’s not but yet it still happens. What can we do as designers to prevent child labour, probably nothing as it’s a way of life in under developed countries but just because of this does that mean we shouldnt try. In my eyes, no not at all if i could do something as a designer to help destroy this way of life for children I would and I would not expect to be paid!!! Although not all people and designers would think in this way.
UNICEF works to give children rights as they have the right to have them just like all of us. If they knew different their ethical outlook on the situation would in no doubt change.
How can we help?? whether it be a donation or a design campaign to promote the charity every little helps. Would designers want to get involved with a charity such as this? Well I remember Gareth Lawn claiming that he wouldn’t feel comfortable designing a campaign for a charity as he would not want the responsibility if it did not succeed. This is a fair point to make although i think the effort is still needed and i would at least try!!
Say yes or no to work
“We are problem solving communicators but feel we cannot afford to turn down work (ethics or Not) in the early days of our careers!”
All humans have their own ethics and standards but could money stand in the way? I would like to say for the majority that money wouldn’t be an issue but there is a small minority where money would sway their thoughts and ethical core. I believe in standing for what you believe is true and in the future if a job was offered to me that I was not comfortable with in terms of my ethical standards I would most definitely turn it down regardless of money.
I think as a designer we have the right to choose what jobs you wish to take on and which you don’t. Designers are human you would not participate in something you dot agree with in your normal life enviroment so why should you within your work enviroment or worse still be expected to!!!
No Logo: taking aim at the brand bullies by Naomi Klein
The growth in the wealth and cultural influence of multi-national corporations over since the 1980’s can arguably be down to one idea: that successful corporations must primarily produce brands, as opposed to products. Until that time, the primary concern of every solid manufacturer was the production of goods. Had designers lost sight of actually making things. then along came the new rival corporations the Nike and Microsoft, and later, the Tommy Hilfiger and Intel. These pioneers made the bold claim that producing goods was only an incidental part of their operations, they were able to have their products made for them by contractors, many of them overseas. These companies produced primarily were images of their brands. Their real work lay not in manufacturing but in marketing. It’s all about who produces the best image not product.
Most of today’s well-known manufacturers no longer produce products and advertise them, but rather buy products and “brand” them. Manufacturing products may require physical tools, but creating a brand needs a completely different set of tools and materials. It requires an endless parade of branding, constant renewed imagery for marketing and, most of all, new space to advertise the brand itself essentially clogging up the landscape and enviroment with endless campaigns.
So the role of advertising changed from delivering news of a new product to building an image around a particular brand/name of a product. in the 1880’s corporate logos were introduced to mass produce goods such as sugar, flour, soap and cereal. Even from this point in life did the consumer buy the brand rather than the product. As we well know brand carry a hierarchy of status, only the rich would purchase the high end brands whereas the poor may choose to evaluate value before image. In a sense did the product begin to have a personality???
Can a product produce a feeling with its thoughtful imagery and comforting appealing design idea. essentially it is the brand that the consumers are buying as opposed to the product. The consumer is lulled into a false sense of security that perhaps they need to buy this brand to look good maybe!!
It took decades to realise what was going on companys clung to the idea that business was still purely for production and branding was simply an important add on. Right up until Phillip Morris bought Kraft in 1988 for 12.6 billion 6 times what the company was worth on paper. Apparently the price difference was solely for the name!! THE BRAND The way of thinking was now the more you spend on branding and advertising the more the company will be worth. Corporations such as Nike and Reebok wised up to the idea of sponsors. Using well known athletes as a walking brand for their products essentially broadening their strategy to this end of the “branding market.”
Arguably some could say that branding has died. Now companies may choose to put money into the marketing rather than the branding. Huge names such as Microsoft and Apple focus more on the product evolving and the practicalities rather than the name as this is what people want. Whereas companies such as Coca Cola, Disney, McDonald’s and Burger King rely solely on the name and choose to escalate as they have their eyes on global expansion only.
A good example to mention is Body Shop over the years through 2 recessions they have been ever expanding without spending a penny on advertising whatsoever. Who need magazines and billboards when they can take advantage of their 3 dimensional retail outlet as a form of advertising an ethical, ecological approach to cosmetics. The Body Shop are all about the brand, yet they do it the right way.
It can be argued we have approached a branding crisis but is there really a crisis or is it just lack of confidence in a product. The product always takes back seat to the brand this can only prove perhaps this isn’t the way forward if the product is good consumers will purchase regardless of the brand. On this hand it’s all about the reputation. For instance take Caterpillar renound for producing building machinery yet now they have expanded and released a branding campaign launching CAT accessories, boots, back packs, hats etc. If consumers have confidence in the product and its reputation of course they will buy.
In my opinion brand is a lifestyle im sure lots of middle class students would love to own a pair of Hilfiger jeans but settle for a good reliable high street brand which are no worse than Hilfiger yet the brand says otherwise. In the present economic decline I think consumers are looking for a reliable fair product that is practical and do not want to pay huge amounts of money for a name that isn’t ethically correct in itself is it????
more lecture notes…….
The design community is part of a socio-economic system that contains limitless growth and a continual state of desire. While in a global context over 50% of human beings have an inadequate supply of the basic necessities of life: water, heating, lighting and survive on less than a dollar a day. So is it ethically correct to continue to function in a system in which designers use mass manipulation of people for financial gain as opposed to helping miss fortunate.
The Bauhaus set up the concept of the ‘one true type’ of object, choice and variety were unnecessary, because the modernists would be inventing the perfect or, optimum solution to a functional problem for every product humans would ever require. The design ethic being more about how designers thought people should live and not the way people do live. Design in the modern world was to be rational, unsentimental, functional and serious. (In my opinion this is a major failure in thought)
Post war period in the USA moved into high mass consumption stage. An era of advanced consumer society and became a model for other societies such as ours. The major problem for the designer with regards to this “new society” is to continually stimulating the urge to buy. Is this the Designers role? Most definitely the role of the designer is to stimulate the consumer to buy a product that’s their job and where their expertise lie. The design world is forever changing the designer has to just get bigger and better!! In a free enterprise capitalist system the only reason to use a designer is to increase the sales of a product, therefore it is the designers role to constantly further evolve their creative skills to produce a product more exciting and appealing to a heavily saturated consumer market.
Milton Glaser 10 points road to hell. Where do your ethics lie, as a designer what do you do and not do?? for example
- Designing an ad for a slow, boring film to make it seem like a light-hearted comedy.
- Designing a medal using steel from the World Trade Center to be sold as a profit-making souvenir of September 11th.
- Designing a line of T-shirts for a manufacturer that employs child labour.
Your decision would rely on your ethical makeup, your core values which give you meaning and value to your work. If we question our designer involvement; How do we square the spending and consuming as if there was no future cost attached. Is there such thing as sustainable design? Are we purely neutral transmitters of a clients message? If we are problem solvers should we be careful as to what problems we take on?
Is design a neutral value free process? No what about the useless material produced all the time pur waste such as brochures leaflets that just get thrown away. The rise of the Deadly Designers “who create a whole new species of permanent rubbish to clutter the landscape, and by choosing materials and processes that pollute the air we breathe, designers have become a dangerous breed.” Design for Society
The choice of client is crucial with regards to your ethical values. As a designer they must plan an ethical practice strategically be an informed, involved citizen, agile and flexible. Is it right for a designer to make moral judgements that interfere with the consumer’s right to choose for her or himself in a ‘free’ society. some designers argue that the interests of the client and the client’s customers are identical. This unconvincing argument is of the amoral designer who caters for desires but asks no further questions like is it socially beneficial, are resources wasted etc. BUT if design is a business this means that it holds its own power perhaps pushing the client further away creating dependency for themselves.
Example: The Nazi logo is a good design it worked well for the nazi party but it does not make it ethically correct or right.
OR Nestle for instance are known for the providing of free baby milk substitute to poor Third World mothers in hospitals, leading to dependency on the substitute and eventually to the deaths of millions of babies. At first Nestle tried to paint it as anti-capitalist propaganda, rather than addressing it. They claimed to be champions of the free market. This led to a boycott of Nestle products eventually leading Nestle into dialogue to try to resolve the issues. Over 30 years!
In terms of ethical consuming 50% of us operate some kind of boycott on the goods we purchase but it’s not straight forward or easy to work out who the ‘bad guys’ are… So it is easy to target Global Corporations such as……
- Nike – Child labour
- Gap – Worker exploitation
- Campbells Soup – Treatment of migrant workers
- McDonald’s – Destruction of the rainforest to graze cattle
Now do we do anything??? Today’s designers must rediscover the purpose of design as a social, moral and political force …we should grow in to active citizens, informed, concerned participant in society who happen to be designers.’ Keep your convictions and not be passive economic servants. Katherine McCoy.
Message from Milton Glaser
“The political exploitation of the fear of terrorism is as alarming as terrorism itself. It has caused me to examine my role as a citizen and to think about whether designers as a group have a dog in this fight, to use a pungent down home cliché. Our dog in this fight may be human survival.”
“As designers, we’ve been concerned about our role in society for a very long time. It’s important to remember that even modernism had social reform as its basic principle, but the need to act seems more imperative than ever.”
“I’ve also changed my mind again about my self designation. Designer/Citizen seems like a more satisfying description. There has been no better time for all of us to assume this role. We are all at risk, but like Victor Frankl, we can choose how to react to our circumstances. We can reject the passivity and narcissism that leads to despair, and choose to participate in the life of our times.”
What is everyone’s self designation? everyone varies with regards to opinion. If we are at risk how should we react to a social, economic or environmental situation. To improve life of our times we need to participate in the improvements of the world. The designer can essentially change the way a citizen thinks with the use of the designers resources and power over the consumers attention.
Lecture Notes
First Things First 200 a design manifesto (and my opinion)
we the designers are graphic designers, art directors, visual communicators in a world in which techniques of advertising are persistently presented to us as the most desireable use of our talents. Many promote this belief, the market rewards it and books reinforce it.
Encouraged by this belief designers can then apply their skill to sell anything from dog biscuits to cigarettes to trainers. this commercial work is what designers do and that is how the world perceives design. BUT is most of their energy wasted manufacturing for a demand of goods that are inessential at best. Is this view uncomfortable, do designers who commit to marketing and brand development work in an enviroment so saturated with commercial messages to the extreme it controls how consumers think and respond. As a designer are we helping to produce a harmful code of public control and discourse.
Perhaps other realms of design deserve our attention more so than the “inessential demand” such as environmental, social and cultural crises. Maybe a reversal of priorities is needed in favor of a more useful lasting communication, an exploration into a new kind of meaning. Designers can make a difference and it is their role to do so through their visual language and resources of design. Explosive growth of global commercial culture means this message gets stronger!!
Urban Farming
In the UK we currently produce around 60 per cent of the food we eat. The rest has to be imported. With a growing world population estimated to increase by 3 billion people, which leads to competition for land, an estimated 109 hectares will be needed. Along with climate change bringing extreme weather conditions food could soon be in short supply and cost a lot more. The argument for growing your own food has never been stronger.
A Potential Solution: Urban Farming Vertically
An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient, cheap to construct and safe to operate. Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world’s urban centres. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply all year round. Along with the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming.
Columbia university professor Dickson Despommier took existing greenhouse technology as a starting point and are now convinced farms within city sky scrapers are a practical idea. In their design energy would be generated by a giant solar panel with incinerators which use the farms waste for fuel. Aswell as this all the water in the entire system would be recycled making the plans whole complex sustainable.
A 30 story building with glass walls. On each floor giant planting beds, visualising as indoor fields as such with a sophisticated irrigation system.
Positives
- All year round cropping production.
- Minimal exposure to pests.
- Elimination of dangerous runoff into river systems.
- Zero food miles as food would be consumed locally.
- Practical way to address climate change.
- No shipping costs therefore no pollution caused by moving produce around the country.
- Free up cleared farm land to be reforested.
An interior farm for a skyscraper in the centre of the urban world. Well as 60% of the world’s population live in the city therefore doesn’t it make sense to grow within the city as there would be no pollution for transport of natural goods. The thought of growing within large vertical buildings may seem unnatural if it is sustainable and good for the enviroment in the long run i feel it is a great design. Urban farming is a prime example of design reaching and extending through the boundaries. Something unusual and normally unthinkable yet it would work and make a difference perhaps more so than just preaching about climate change.
Design doesn’t belong on “normal” materials it can be anything u can think even the intricate design process of an indoor urban farm and its sustainable qualities.
“Even if it’s not quite natural…..Youre going to get back the rest of the earth” Professor Dickson Despommier
http://urbanagriculture.wordpress.com/
Co2 Cubes
In Copenhagen, an art project conveys the hard facts about carbon dioxide.
Whilst trying to combat climate change, a multimedia art installation floats on a barge near the Tycho Brahe Planetarium to remind onlookers of how much risk is in the air. The CO2 cube is a structure 27 feet on each side that represents 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide, the amount produced by the average citizen of an industrialized country in a month, and half the total of the typical American. Created from 12 shipping containers to form the equivalent of a three-story building, the installation is clad on two sides with architectural mesh fabric that serves as a screen for video displays related to the impact and solutions for climate change.
Here is a clip from youtube of the cube in action.
The idea of having a huge structure in a public location for everyone to see is a clever design idea in order to communicate a message efficiently. The cube visualizes data in a different way to that of facts and figures it’s the equivalent to the size of an actual tonne of co2 therefore conveying the message so much stronger as the damage you do the planet is right there in front of the onlooker. Why should campaigns remain on paper and posters, this is a brilliant twist on an environmental campaign, which brings me back to the idea that the designer has a responsibility to protect the enviroment by producing such brilliant design ideas such as this.
Sustainability
What is the role of the designer in the contemporary world. My aim is to examine a range of modern practitioners with special focus upon their working philosophies with emphasis upon three themes in particular: Sustainability, Boundaries and Borders and finally Ethical Issues. This will enable me to value the diversity of these three themes for different designers.
Sustainability
Sustainable art work in the urban world is extremely important. I came across this piece of sustainable artwork that revitalised Brisbane car park whilst searching the web.
This piece was installed by Urban Art Projects (UAP) it successfully transforms the unsightly view from the street of a tall ninestorey car park with a further thirteen levels of office space above on Albert Street, in the Australian city of Brisbane. It turns and ugly car park into a sustainable visually exciting piece of art work.
The piece was invented by Jenifer Marchant who proudly named it “Landlines” It is created from 549 powder coated, laser cut aluminium panels all 1.2m x 3.6m. inspiration for this piece came from the idea of what can be viewed from the top of the tall building, therefore people on the street have the experience of taking in what the landscape around them looks like from the buildings point of view, all the beautiful contours of the main land around them. Essentially bringing the view from the top of the building to street level.
The design is unique as it serves an environmental purpose as well as just being visually pleasing and uplifting. It acts an a veil that disguises the exterior of an unsightly car park but also as a sustainable design solution. The aluminium panels work to naturally ventilate the sub tropical car park. This has reduced the buildings carbon emissions due to not needing the use of over £1million of mechanical ventilation systems.
Daniel Tobin, Principal of UAP said, “53 Albert Street illustrates the huge potential value integrated artworks can contribute to a project, in this case saving the client money, significantly reducing the building’s carbon footprint whilst also enhancing the public realm.”
“With this project we wanted to make visual connections to the surrounding landscapes which firmly route the work within its context and highlight UAP’s belief in site specific responses to public art.”
Creative Futures Week.
I recently sat through a talk with Gareth Lawn a Graphic Designer who currently works for View Creative. I found the talk fairly interesting and definitely picked up a few good pointers to keep in mind when the time comes to get out there and GET A JOB!!!
BE DIFFERENT… How do you successfully make yourself different in order to get noticed and to essentially stand out from the crowd??
- Most candidates send their CV via email. Why not be different and send something by post as well as email, just a few of your good pieces of work, in order to let the employer get a feel of your style prior to meeting you. In Gareth lawns case he had already showed them that he knew about photography, web design, screen print and packaging before even meeting with them.
- Brand yourself give all your work a personality.
- Create a simple website to show off all your work DO NOT OVER COMPLICATE keep it simple.
- Dont send all of your best work just a few key pieces so that when it comes to the interview you still have important work to show, so employer doesn’t get bored easily.
Interview
Know your own portfolio, practice what you’re going to say, know whats coming next. Dont make it up on the spot it can be very obvious. Importantly don’t rush through your work, take your time.
Moat importantly if you don’t get the job, don’t let it dent your confidence just simply move on. Learn from the process i.e note which pieces of work people react to best.
Freelance Designer
Negatives: You have no constant income, have to do multiple jobs, can be lonely, If you make a mistake it is all your resposibility……..BUT
Positives: You have no boss, You make the rules (i.e. how to treat clients) You take home what you earn, If your good your more likely to work with clients YOU want to work with and finally if its good it’s because of you.
To be a good freelancer: Be a brand, Know how long things take, learn how to do all your invoicing and keep on top of it, make sure the price is right and charge for everything (stock libraries, corrections, printer proofs, maps and materials)
KNOW WHAT INSPIRES YOU!!!!!
What was particularly interesting during this talk was when Gareth Lawn was asked where he stands in regard to ethics in his work and what work he chooses to take on. Lawn stated that he would not be comfortable taking on a moral campaign such as NSPCC or RSPCA. Reasons being that if the designs were not accepted and failed he would not want the whole responsibility or perhaps guilt that his work has not changed lives as it was designed to do so.
“I am a designer i do not want to change the world” Gareth Lawn.
Does the designer have a role to change lives is it their responsibility to make a change?? Well considering designers have the access to all materials, softwares etc.. along with skills and expertise I think it is a designers responsibility and role to at least try to attempt to make a change as you could argue they are the best people if only people to do so!!!!!
Chris Ramsden. Charted Society of Designers.
This talk touched upon issues of the medical world and where design lies within these boundaries. The answer; Everywhere. One point Chris Ramsden made was that if you had a wheelchair that perhaps had a mobility problem or the design was not to your liking, the owner would instantly go to the manufacturer. Why not go to a designer who could completely redesign a product to fit just your needs not for a majority.
He also commented about design on medication within surgery’s and hospitals, and how important labels were in the medical realm, stating some awful facts that miss conception of a label and dosage etc.. has led to death in hospitals. Before hearing this talk i has never even thought about issues such as these. The role of the designer had completely changed in my mind, perhaps there are no boundaries as to where design is and its importance.
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