A few months ago, when I was knee-deep in my “should I or shouldn’t I” grad school crisis, Adbusters and a few other magazines simultaneously published a reprint of First Things First, a manifesto first written by Ken Garland in 1964. First Things First was a call to designers to take responsibility for the role they played in society, and not just idly contribute to the propagation of reckless consumption. It asked designers to make a distinction between design as communication and design as persuasion, and side in favor of using their skills to improve our culture rather than drown it in a deeper sea of crap.
This made a big impact on me, since it was a clear, passionate articulation of problems I’d wrestled with for years as a designer. This was the reason I’d quit or turned down more than one job rather than produce second-rate crap just because it might sell. This was the reason that one of my professors at Pratt consistently made me furious in class for wasting our energy on a project geared toward producing modular, “sell-as-much-as-possible” crap. This was the reason that I’ve never considered working in advertising. This was also the reason I loved working for public television and teaching. I really believe in design’s ability to facilitate learning and understanding, in ways that are explicit as well as implicit. I love typography and design and photography and stuff, and I want to use them for good, not evil.
Naturally, this high-falutin’ approach regularly comes into conflict with my desire to earn a living. I once had to design a kids’ book that was little more than a perverse attempt to move product by cashing in on public-domain ideas. I still cringe when I think about the time I gave telephone software support to what is apparently a cult. It’s an ongoing battle, and one where I’m not always happy with the outcome, but I think it’s worth the effort to try and stick by the ethical approach.
Wired published a great article that hit me in the same way, even though it wasn’t about my field of expertise. Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us was an examination of where the future of robotics, nanotechnology, and genetic engineering might be taking us, and whether or not they posed more of a threat than an ultimate benefit. This wasn’t a reactionary warning from a Luddite; it was written by Bill Joy from Sun, and looked at both sides of the coin. But it made the same call to scientists and engineers that First Things First made to designers: Take responsibility for the things to which you contribute. He points out that Robert Oppenheimer and the scientists of the Manhattan Project learned this lesson later than they wished they had, and that some of today’s technologies pose even greater threats than the Bomb posed.
It wouldn’t be such a bad idea for everyone to ponder the ethics of their careers, now would it? Maybe that tickle in the back of your brain, that aspect of your job that you try not to think about, is something you should think about. Maybe it’s not such a grey area after all. Maybe it’s touch of conscience.
