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newsletter bi-monthly bulletin of the International Council of Design |
September 2022 | |||||||||
01
PolemicIt used to be that designs were meant to work well, be durable and beautiful, but most of all, adapted to the needs of the user, not to mention …offer a tactile or lived experience. What happens when design is separated from its ‘body’, and is reduced to its image, or its ‘photographibility’. |
02
On DesignProfessionalism is the difference between doing something for immediate personal gain or gratification (regardless of the impact on others), and doing something because it is right, and builds long-term confidence in the profession at large. |
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03
Design ethicsBrands that use marginalised communities and social justice movements to build online engagement are feeling the kickback from a community that expects more. “We need to be using the tools, talent and resources at our disposal to begin the kind of grassroots action that isn’t flashy, viral and PR-able,” states Gem Fletcher in this editorial for It's Nice That. “We’ve built a system where value is intrinsically linked to spectacle and novelty, perception and performativity. While there is a place for that, this seemingly endless stream of virtue signaling is mimicking consciousness-raising rather than embodying it.” |
04
Member newsOn 31 August 2022, the Design Education Advisory Committee (DEAC) published their report, “Beyond 2050: Reimagining Design Education in Singapore"". The report, marking the DEAC's first two-year term, outlines key recommendations to help develop the next generation of creative thinkers and a resilient workforce that will employ design to help Singapore thrive in the future economy by 2050. |
05
Professional ethicsWhy is it so rare to see designers properly credited for their work? Very few websites give credit or even list the designers, and industrial designers are rarely credited with the consumer goods they design, with the notable exception of the luxury goods sector. As an association of professionals, we think it's critical to educate consumers on the value of design. This is why we find it disgraceful that there would be clients actively preventing designers from taking credit of their own work in public portfolios. The use of NDAs and other legal means to leverage the power imbalance between client and designer is exploitative and wrong. |
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06
OpinionLet's discuss the on-going trend in the media to put the responsibility for saving the environment on the consumer making 'ethical' choices. This is a kind of gaslighting. First, because it asks the consumer to assume responsibility for impacts that are not theirs (the lion's share of emissions come from 25 international corporations, mostly coal and gas) and, second, because it asks consumers to make decisions with no or wrong information. Corporations tout the ecological merits of their products, whether true or not (see next article), and consumers have no way to verify this information or understand where the impacts come from. Designers, being an integral part of the system that crafts and promotes messaging, are part of this process. Let's work to change the messaging. Our societies need to start asking their governments to legislate laws that put the burden on the source of the emissions: corporations.
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07
EnvironmentFast Fashion giant H&M is being sued for misrepresenting their sustainability claims in marketing materials. By “conveniently and egregiously” presenting negative results as positive ones, such as turning “‘more water’ into ‘less water’ [on its] scorecards,” Commodore accuses H&M of “falsif[ying]” its Sustainability Profiles with “inaccurate and misleading data” and “misrepresent[ing] its products as being better for the environment than comparable garments, when they are not.” And to make matters worse, the plaintiff alleges that H&M did this “for each and every Sustainability Profile scorecard.” |
08
Industry newsLast week, Adobe announced that it had bought out one of its rivals, Figma, for the cost of USD $20 billion. This move, that some consider monopolistic and predatory, essentially removes one of the corporation's biggest rivals in the realm of digital design. In an instagram poll of the Council's followers, 85% said that that this development 'concerned' them. This is no surprise. Designers vocally complained at the lack of options when the software giant moved to a subscription model a few years ago and users in the developing world have often voiced concerns that the American company's pricing was exculsionary. This seems to make matters slightly worse. |
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09
Intellectual propertyWhile the average consumer will say that designer furniture is a good investment, most aren't willing to pay the high prices for it. Enter: the designer knockoff. In this article from 2018, author Angela Serratore delves into the gritty world of designer knockoff furniture where the trade-off for a lower price tag means high environmental and ethical costs. Serratore asks, What can the design industry do to offer “good, ethical, authentic design” at an affordable price?.. Or is it an unwinnable game of whack-a-mole that keeps a holistic solution perpetually out of reach?” |
10
Member newsICoD Member Graphic Designers of Canada has elected to become multidisciplinary. The organisation, now called Designers of Canada (DesCan), has positioned itself as representing the design communications industry. Established in 1956, the society not only represents designers from a variety of specialisations (UX, UI, application design, placemaking, graphic, and more) but also affiliated non-design professionals such as photographers, illustrators and copywriters. |
11
ICoD EventsOur next Platform Meeting will be held in Kaunas (Lithuania) on 15 October 2022. Under the theme 'Design is possibility', we look to explore the endless potential design has to adapt to a changing world. The design profession plays a role in climate change, social inequity, cultural appropriation, exploitation, extraction, erasure, and technological encroachment—perhaps even more than most professions, because what we do is mass-produced, reproduced and packaged so attractively. But design is a profession of potential and of possibility, and we have an ethical obligation to bring such potentialities and possibilities—things so deeply functional as to be unlikely—into reality. |
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The International Council of Design |
ICoD Secretariat: Phone: +1 514 875 7545 Email: info@theicod.org theicod.org |
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