Design & Society

It is impossible to exclude the design's effect on society and the society's effect on design. What differentiates them is the stand that a designer chooses. Either to be subdued by society or to decide to make a change, not only make good design but to make good.

The following visuals do speak louder than words, and through these examples we will understand more the power of messaging.

''Some of these drawings may look like the work of a war obsessed 14 year old kid but the crude, hand written style was calculated by the Central Intelligence Agency's Psychological Operations Division, to have maximum impact on the moral of Iraqi soldiers during the gulf war''
The message was either "Fight & Die" or "Surrender & See you family agian".

Through these campaigns, the message being sent made a huge impact on the society. These are only but a few campaigns done but their effect was amazing, they heavily damaged the fur industry, shops were boycotted and fur sales plummeted.



"Water for all Humanity''
The issue of drinkable water for everyone is fiercely political. This poster shows Sanitation, pollution, economic development. It fortells the future and provokes human awareness.

Postcards made for the plight of Sarajevo using reworked cultural icons. The more the postcards/posters the more people were aware of what was happening in Sarajevo, therefore, it became the satirical theme of reworked cultural and pop icons such as coca cola and absolute vodka.



Major battles were waged in the 1990's with heavy bouts of direct action.
Therefore, later in the decade tobacco industries were forced to pay compensation to health victims and also had to make reparation payments by financing anti tobacco campaigns.
Now most advanced countries, have banned the advertising of tobacco.


We have the power of messaging, design does in fact change the society's perception.
We designers educate, motivate, provoke and influence the society. Design affects life and death.

A simple example that David Berman uses in his speech is that of the increasing amount of deadly traffic accidents that happened in Melbourne Australia.
Many were color blind and therefore could not see at night if the lights were red or green. What design problem solved is the use of not only colors, but shapes to indicate "stop", "proceed".

Another example of how design could affect life and death decisions was the 2ooo USA elections, where the Ballot was badly designed, and the horribly failed info design made Bush win against Al Gore. With Bush winning, it was enough to see war waged on Iraq, and condoms being stopped to be sent to Africa.

We have to protect our society, we have to know and be aware of dangerous issues we have to keep on observing and educating people. Our obligation is not to do good design but do good.
We have a responsibility towards the environment, towards humanity.

Ethical responsibility in graphic design.

Every situation of human communication falls within the field of ethics. It can be ethical or unethical, but it cannot be a-ethical.

According to Jeorge Frascara in his book "User-centred graphic design", the basic principle of an ethical communication is the recognition of the Other (the receiver of the communication) as a person and not as an object.
Infact, recognizing the Other as a subject means that we recognize him/her as an independent, thinking person, with a specific way of understanding, evaluating and integrating experiences and information.

Summing up, in ethical communications, one communicates with someone about something; one does NOT communicate something to someone.
Ethical communication is the opposite of military communication, where a superior communicates something to an inferior – he trasmits an order that is received passively, and which is coded so as not to allow room for differing interpretations.

When we talk about ethical communication, we're unable to use the Shannon's popular terminology which define the poles of the communication chain as transmitter and receiver; it is more fitting to talk about producers and interpreters, in this way we allow room for context, history, expectations, goals, values, priorities, feelings, preferences and differences of intelligence.
Shannon's terminology describes a communication model where the receivers look up at the source of the message with passivity and reverence, and where communication becomes undirectional.
In ethical communications the producers has to speak a language that the audience can understand. If producers really want to communicate, they should remember that people can only understand things that relate to things that they already understand, using the language of the audience.
This is why the ideal form of human communication is dialogue.

John Frascara thinks that the ethical dimension in visual communication is something embedded in the engagment between the interpreter and the visual design.
A work of visual design proposes a mode of engagment, which might foster a more or less active participation of the interpreter in the construction of the message. These models of engagment can promote certain attitues and expectations, and influence the way people relate to other people.

Many codes of conduct published by professional societies of designer mention the notion of ethics, but in many case they only include ethical responsibilities to collegue and clients, and very rarely to the public. It is indispensable to relate to the public, and most important recognizing it as a group of individuals with different way of understanding, feeling and acting.
Imposition does not work in long term: that's why without partnership between the public and the message producer, the attitudes will not change.
When attitudes do not change, the need for repressive coomunications, legislation and enforcement constantly grows, quite likely leading finally to the collapse of the effort.

Ethical communication that recognize the complexity of people and the difficulties involved in generate attitude changes are the only promising approach when real changes are being sought.
In this situation, where relations become ethical, where the best talents of everyone concerned are pooled, where complex and ambitious projects become realizable, the designers can play a role as catalyst and contributors to a constantly developing conceptual and cultural environment.