The debate is currently raging in the letter pages of creative review about the intricacies of graphic activism and ‘design with a conscience’ (and how best to negotiate this). One thing the discussion has focussed on is the degree of responsibility graphic designers should take for the work they do – (are we just the ‘messenger’ and if so do we deserve to be shot?).
While I think we should hesitate to criticise any individual or company doing work which they perceive to be for the greater good, a particular bugbear is those companies who seem to see ‘design karma’ as a finely balanced point system, where work for a charity or NGO can be offset against a carte blanche approach to anything else. It seems almost inevitable that at some point all designers end up with a range of clients who are at best strange bedfellows. However the responsibility still lies with the designer to advocate with all clients the use of ethical processes, environmentally friendly materials and construction, and socially sustainable messages, probably even more so with the ‘regular’ clients than with the not-for profit, ‘right on’ clients.
About four years ago, while I was on a placement with â??JohnsonBanksâ??, I came across a fantastic poster Michael Johnson had done for the Campaign Against Climate Change. I also noticed that he (or rather his wife, as seemed more often the case), drove a BMW SUV, and in retrospect these things just don’t seem to add up.
There is little that is black or white in this debate, but of particular interest are companies who are taking a more wholesale approach to doing the ‘right thing’, not just turning it on as and when it suits. In no particular order they are â??Redesign Designâ??, â??Sproutâ??, â??Live|Workâ?? and â??Doors of Perceptionâ??. Very different organisations, (and interestingly, none of them really dealing in communication design alone), but what unites them all is a commitment to look at design as a strategic problem of great complexity (and contradictions), not just a graphic, product or piece of communication in isolation.