I’d like to introduce a friend of the FORT, one Ryan Bush – who has been instrumental in previous posts, playing an obscured role in the shadows of this blog. No more, we say! Ryan wrote a piece on what he sees happening to our craft, and I’ve a response of mine below if you care to hear it. If you’ve got beef with it, love for it, or are just here for the 1/2 priced cocktails, be sure to voice your fabulous opinion in the comments. Enjoy Honest Design.

Honest Design

I am a student, and a designer. As I have grown and learned more about design, I begin to take in and silently critique the things I encounter in my daily life.

I have become immune to many of the alluring gimmicks that businesses create to sell their products, and there are still some that I will be entranced by no matter how wrong I am for it. This is the plight of most designers today: creating the desire to buy, invest, contribute to x-business. Dine here because we have the genuine family experience. Drink this because it’s fresh and high quality. It’s an endless cycle of business creating fodder for products/services and designers creating an ad/identity that glosses over the bad things and focuses only on the “good.” This cycle continues because of the focus of monitary compensation. Business creates shitty products for less money, designers make the product look nice to get payed.

Needless to say, the power of design & the designer is very real. Take a look at the recent ad campaign for the Portland Timbers. It was a year ago that I mistook the Timbers for being our hockey team because I literally knew nothing about them. Since dozens of billboards have popped up all over the city, it has become very clear what kind of team the Timbers are, and I haven’t seen this many locals proud to wear a Timbers jersey… ever. There is now a sense of a Timbers community all because of the awesome ad campaign created by Jelly Helm Studio.

This kind of control over the subliminal psyche of a number of individuals is a scary thought, and I am not the first to say that this manipulation has been abused, and for a very long time. We have all become helpless to the ads of so many different products because some resonate so well with us that we feel that our lives would be better with said product (good design in action), but what happens when we create honest design?

What if the motivations behind all of our design work, all of the advertisements, all the businesses were not focused on increasing profits or selling more units, but was actually focused on the greater good of the individual and the community?

I have had many thoughts on the subject of “honest design” and as I continue to question this topic further, I have come to realize that for something like this to work, it would take a radical shift in the way that business is approached as a whole. Seeing as how design originated as a means of communicating the intentions of a business to the consumer, it is natural that for something like honest design to be successful, then the structure and intentions of business must be changed as well. I don’t mean to suggest that there is no honest design/business happening at the moment, but I think we all know that the majority of business that is out there is comprised of corporate entities that have few motivations in mind: make more money, make more product, make it cheaper, sell it for more.

If the intentions of our businesses are set in this way, then the designer is forced to create an image/identity for a company that is false, all for the sake of luring new customers to buy their products. Why is it though that we have to create these identities in the first place? Is it really too much to ask that the businesses we design for actually embody the grace and honesty that our marks and identities suggest? It feels like a shift is occurring in business all over the nation, which reflects in the design work that is supporting said business.

People are asking more from companies, more transparency, more honesty, better products for reasonable pricing, and as I see it, this is the way it should be.

As a designer, it is my responsibility to reflect the ideologies and intentions of the business that hires me to do so, but if that entails creating work that will make false suggestions on that companies’ behalf, there is a conflict in moral fiber there that is too hard for me to handle. As a student, and a developing designer, I am well aware of the fact that I am ignorant to the complexities of this situation. I have the safety net of student loans, teacher & peer input on my work. I am not forced to take whatever job comes my way because I don’t have a mortgage to pay. With that in mind, does that make me wrong for assuming that things need to change? The way I see it, yes, there is a lot of shitty business practice being done here, and yes those businesses pay high wages for designers to make them look nice, but what is the real gain? If a corporation invests its money overseas to create a product for cheaper, only to sell that product at a ridiculous profit margin back to us, is it really worth it for us to be representing them in an honest light? Business like this has been around for far too long, and designers have been strung along to chase the paycheck that comes from such profitable businesses.

What if there was a future where honest business was easily represented in honest design?

Can you imagine a time where good business was the norm? Where you get what you pay for? Where a company creates good products for the people because they appreciate the time ittakes to create something good, and they take pride in their work? I can. I do see it, but at this point it is only a whisper among the screams of big business, but I think there is a change in store.

I am well aware that this kind of conversation scares people, or makes them upset. It makes me look ignorant, and that may be, but there is within us all a tinge of longing for a future like this. I believe that this is the inevitable future of business and ultimately design. If we keep asking questions like this, asking more of ourselves and others, it’s bound to shape the outcome of our efforts in some way, isn’t it?

Response:

Transparency:  This would be Aaron and I’m less than 24 hours removed from finishing the book Ishmael. Moving forward realize I’m more sensitive to this topic than normal.

It’s hard for me to embrace phrases like good business and honest design at first because they are so subjective. It seems fraught with turmoil to argue about ‘good’ business practices, because it then makes the arguer a policer of whatever ‘good’ business is. That said, I do struggle with this topic myself. If I wouldn’t buy Exxon’s products, why would I design them? I’m not sure how to reconcile this as a young designer who is facing student loan repayment, increasing rents, and the realization that financial stability is all it’s cracked up to be. Exxon is an easy corp. to use, because it’s so polarizing and obvious. So, I think my response is this:  It’s up to me.

My gut will tell me if a client is right or wrong. And if I do work for Exxon it’s not wrong. It’s just not going to be work that I’ll be proud of, or that is “honest” in any sense. It’ll likely be more aligned with propaganda-laced lies and heavy marketing techniques, rather than anything to do with deep story, value, or purpose. It is wishful thinking to hope all clients will be aligned with deep story, value, and purpose (Purpose & value beyond that of shareholder purpose & value)?

Perhaps not. But it is at this stage in MY career. Choosing ones clients seems to be a luxury for those at a different point in their careers than I am.

My younger years will likely need to be focused on the craft, creativity, joy and enrichment I get from practicing design, and this vexes me only in principle, because I know there is more.

Later, I know I will yearn for added nourishment, purpose, and value in my work. I’m getting there, it will be a lovely season, but it’s a few years out. Mr. Ryan Bush, your thoughts are candid and illuminating. If you find a bushel of these clients you speak of, send them my way. FORTPORT will certainly be up to the task. We’re lucky to have students asking questions and willing to voice them to a group of strangers. You must have elephant-thick skin. Applause.