For the sake of orderliness, I am deviating from my normal method of labeling coursework. Usually I jsut give it funny title that probably only makes sense to myself, but is still clear on the topic at hand. This time, there are 2 assignments, so I have labelled them according to the assigned prompts. Boring, I know, but also effecient.
8.1 Sustainable Design
My thoughts on sustainable design. Wellllll... It sounds like a good idea. I say it "sounds" because I do not believe it is currently an often enough reality. I say "idea" because not enough people have cottoned on to ACTUALLY doing it. Sure you can buy recycled paper, but that's been around since, what, the 80's? Suppliers of the appropriate materials are few and far between. At this point, it should 't be this difficult to get your hands on green materials. They are out there, most certainly, but how accessible are they? I think that the sustainable elements need to be within the reach of the public, and not just designers with the inside scoop. It's lovely to see designers create cheaper, recycled products and packaging that looks AND does good, but it's all just a passing fad if the public has to buy the finished product. It's like we've left all the cleaning up to designers... major designers.
Besides that, I also think that sustainable design isn't just about eco-friendly products and packaging... What messages are we sending as designers? The t-shirt may come in a recyclable wrapping that requires 30% less energy to make than traditional wrapping and also has a really cool graphic design... but who made the t-shirt and it is it costing? If the shirt came from a sweatshop inVenezuela, then we are still supporting whatwe aim to destroy. Sweatshops are not following shiny new eco-standards. Let's be serious, they don't even count when it comes to sparkling social responsibility [or any responsibility for that matter]. Sustainable design isn't jsut about how you promote a product, or how you make a product more efficient and eco-friendly, it's about the bigger picture. I care about the dumps being filled with toxic and non-biodegradable waste. I care more about the impoverished people playing and rummaging through it, living amongst it.
My goal as a designer is to run around that circle as much as possible. Ethically speaking, I can't design an ad or logo for a company's social responsibility campaign knowing the company sells sweatshop clothing in their stores. Nike ran a campaign to promote sports for kids in less fortunate socio-economic areas. It was a pretty big deal. But rum or on the streets, was that all of the promotional t-shirts and products for the campaign still came from sweatshops that already produced some Nike products. What kind of sense does that make? I am not saying it's all or nothing, because then nothing would get done BUT sustainability can't teeter on the fence. Sustainable design is not sustainable unless it comes full circle.
8.2 Ten Things I've Learned During Critical Debates...
1 Progress is a fancy way of looking behind you.
The most progressive designers know how to appreciate a good classic. The proof is in their design. They either have a gift for, or have learned to manipulate the classic principles. Too many people focus on the future of their field, and how they can be the next big thing. Progress isn't about invention. Believe it or not, none of us are creators. We're just people with plenty of raw material and imagination. There's this shirt that says "Bad Artists Copy, Good Artists Steal." So true. Either you will just carbon copy what you've already seen [and, hey, that works for some people but it's hardly monumental], or you will disassemble the parts and manipulate them into something entirely new. Regardless, it all comes form the same stuff... How well can you make you audience believe it doesn't?
2 Experiment.
So if progress is just a new way of using old things, then how else will we arrive to new conclusions other than experimentation? Every inventor was only manipulating the world around him. Edison did not just magically cough a light bulb. He just found a million ways "not to make a light bulb." The operative word being make. Edison had an idea and he worked it over like a fallow potato field in Ireland. The only difference, is that he yielded from it. As designers, we can't just assume every idea that looks good in our minds is going translate perfectly to the real world. Progress in design is about not leaving waters uncharted, and not giving up when it looks like failure. Test your ideas, and if they don't work then you have discovered another way not to design.
3 Who cares if it's just pretty?
Design has to be more than a nice combination of colors and interesting techniques. They have to come to a point. Design is rendered utterly ineffective if things just look good for the sake of looking good. Doritos and Kettle Chips both look tasty but for very different reasons. If the designers were only out to make the chips look good, then either brand could have easily ended up with each other's design. But the packaging says something. Doritos are punch-packed with flavor, exciting and edgy triangles of crunchy satisfaction and delight: faint-hearted tongues need not apply. Kettle Chips are down-to-earth savory potato crisps direct from the ground. Why mash up the potato with chemicals before baking when you can just slice up a fresh potato and lightly dust it with flavor? Sophistication in a slaty snack if I ever saw it. See the difference? Know what you are saying and to whom you speak. Design accordingly.
4 You are never merely a designer.
If you are in this for the making of pretty pictures, then modern art is down the hall, please leave my classroom. As a designer, you have to learn to say more than "Ohhhhh, I look good. Buy me." There a million products, and you see just about half of them every day. I went to a little shop on the corner to buy a soda, and I noticed that the place was FILLED wit color. All of the packaging on those products said a million things, and quite well, because I noticed the vast majority of them amongst all the clutter. But that is exactly why choosing a midnight snack is so hard... all of the chips look good! Well, if we are only designing to make things look good, we're just a piece of straw in a haystack. Welcome to the club. Design is about the total package. We ascribe to different roles in life: I am also a daughter, a sister, a friend, a Christian, a recycle-nut, a mostly vegetarian, a science nerd, an 80's freak, etc. How else can design affect these parts of me? As a designer, I have to see and address these ascriptions in my work. If my work is only telling my audience one thing, then I'm only reaching one target on one level, and that isn't much. Which brings me to my next point...
5 More than words can say...
My English teachers in high school used to always say "Show don't tell." Most of the kids in my class didn't get it. [Or maybe they did but didn't care enough to always follow the advice.] They wrote some okay papers, but my teachers were tired of hearing regurgitated information and ideas. If you can't manipulate words to say more than their superficial definition, then you will never be more than a mere journalist: reporting as is. Well the same goes for designers.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious, I know what it is but what is SPECIAL about your product? There are ten fizzy juice drinks. Why on earth should I buy your brand?"
"Well those guys are 100% juice [HA, from concentrate...], and those slender bottles over there are just overpriced 'lightly carbonated' water with an infusion of flavor [total rip-off]. But MY fizzy juice drinks are NOT just fizzy juice drinks. They are an experience for your taste buds. We don't lightly infuse anything, rather we have perfectly balanced some new flavors using only organic ingredients and fresh water and we've carbonated them just enough so they are light and refreshing and not, well... frat-boy belch inducing. And for this price, darling, we are so much more sophisticated than our price tag would have you believe. That's why."
Design shows. Use all of your elements, including the copy to show. Just by using a different typeface, the words will say something completely new, especially in combination with the color and form of your design.
6 Ethics are not nebulous.
Many people would have you believe that ethics have to be black and white while others would have you thinking it's just one big gray swamp. Well ethics are both. While ethics are not rigid, they have much more form than a dissipating smoke cloud. For people like Michael Moore [you can just guess as to how I feel about his dubious character], you get to pick and choose because ethics are here to serve you and make you look good. Well, ethics don't work like that. No one likes being lied to, and no matter how many ethical issues you address and land on the side of good, it comes down to your heart. If the heart of your words, and your work are not wholly honest and pure, your audience WILL find out, it is only a matter of time. If you don't prescribe to traditionally held ethical values and morals, then be honest about it. But do not pretend to be an ethical champion because you will find soon enough that some will blindly worship you, some will reject you for your betrayal, and the rest will put you on the back burner and ignore you. If you enjoy, even thrive, off of blind worship then proceed as you like. If you value the intrinsic nature of your work and want to share it with others, then respect the sensibilities of your audience. Ethics are not an accessory.
7 You can always do more than your part.
In terms of ethics and, more specifically, sustainability, you can always do more than your part. You are not just a designer. To only uphold ethical values in that part of your life and nowhere else is pointless. I love champions of global warming and climate change who couldn't stop tooting their self-righteous horn for one moment if it would save their life. Martyrs. I don't care if you want to reduce CO2 emissions by designing a hydra-car because you are a fabulous eco-warrior engineer. If you take 10-minute breaks to chain smoke between interviews for your ground-breaking new design, then you diminish the value of your sweat blood and tears. Sure you reduce the amount of poison puffed out by cars, but your addiction/habit is just another way of polluting the air. Again, ethics are not an accessory. If design is just something you do, then it isn't relevant to who you really are. But a responsible designer recognizes the implications of their work: If it is worthy of your hard work, then it is worthy of your personal life too. Do you part as a designer. Do your part is a son or daughter. Do your part as a commuter. Do your part as aconsumer. Do your part as a friend. Do your part as a human being. Do what you can.
8 Design rules the world!!!! [Insert diabolical laughter here]
People would be sad little schmoes walking about aimlessly in this world if it wasn't for design. Our world is beautiful because nature is the ultimate in design principles, and we had nothing to do with it. We get to work in the morning because a group of people designed a freeway or a commuter train to get us there. The only reason I can find a place I've never been to is because someone assigned and address, and another group of people created a system of signs so I could be given understandable directions. Save art in schools, because designers [engineers, and science geeks included] are glorified artists. Design rules the world. It makes our world beautiful, and without it we wouldn't be able to understand the world around us much less communicate in it. [That goes for you to laissez-faire, and capitalism. Business would be pointless if there was no artistic way for consumers to distinguish you from the competition.]
9 Don't let design become your business, it's a lifestyle.
There are two core reasons for this. First, if it's just a business, then it lacks real meaning and carries only the value assigned to it and that's just sad. If there is no feeling behind what you do then it becomes just another entity traded on the NASDAQ [or whatever, I don't get all that econ mumbo-jumbo]. Second, when you own what do as a part of who you are, you'll make more discoveries. As you experiment and implement your design work in your life, you will find news perspectives and ideas that would have otherwise been beyond your realm of understanding. Ingenuity would be limited, and design would suffer. Progress would be slow, and the visuals would just be terribly boring, and therefore rendered useless after awhile. Own your design work! It's beautiful.
10 Don't let design become your lifestyle, it's a business.
You call this a contradiction and I call it "balance." Don't take yourself too seriously. At the end of the day there is a client, and there are consumers. This isn't about you. That kind of design is for your spare time and for experimentation and expressing yourself. Don't forget the purpose behind each task, because your design will also suffer if you are always the only motivation behind it.
