ICOGRADA design ethics magazine

// NOVEMBER 2013 £5 icogradaIDA

leading creatively

Issue no. 2

Founded in 1963, Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations) is a voluntary assembly of organisations concerned with graphic design, visual communication, design management, promotion, education, research and journalism. Icograda promotes communication designers’ vital role in society and commerce and unifies the voices of graphic designers and visual communicators worldwide.

The vision, mission and core values of the council are collectively embodied in the statement ‘leading creatively’ and manifested through our Members’ diverse activities to use design as a medium for progressive change. Communication design is an intellectual, technical and creative activity concerned not simply with the production of images but with the analysis, organisation and methods of presentation of visual solutions to communication problems.

The Icograda Foundation was established in 1991 for the advancement of worldwide understanding and education through the effective use of graphic design. This effective use of graphic design also influences sustainable design which is designing without negative environmental effects. Sustainable design encourages the use of renewable resources; renewable resources, social, economic, and ecological sustainability. The sustainability discipline is as follows, to show quality but durability, to design for reuse and be recyclable, energy efficient, low impact material with renewability.

leading creatively.

Table of Contents4

12

18

26

32

39

42

First Things First Manifestoby Rick Poynor

Working with Valuesby Collins Ta’eed

Zappoby Chrishard Landgraf

Sustainable Designby Susan Rictey

Debating Design Integrityby Sara Curtis

Turn Aroundby Michael Hardt

Cause and Effect: Why now, more than ever, the non-profit world needs design and vice versaby DK Holland

Cause and Effect: Design for Social Causesby Jacques Langes 46

FIRSTTHINGSFIRST

MANIFESTO

4

We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art

directors and visual communicators who have

been raised in a world in which the techniques

and apparatus of advertising have persistently

been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective

and desirable use of our talents.

Many design teachers and mentors promote this

belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and

publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this

direction, designers then apply their skill and

imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee,

diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit

cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-

duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has

always paid the bills, but many graphic designers

have now let it become, in large measure, what

graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world

perceives design. The profession’s time and energy

is used up manufacturing demand for things that

are inessential at best.

Many of us have grown increasingly

uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers

who devote their efforts primarily to advertising,

marketing and brand development are supporting,

and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment

so saturated with commercial messages that it is

changing the very way citizen-consumers speak,

think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent

we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably

harmful code of public discourse. There are pursuits

more worthy of our problem-solving skills.

Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural

crises demand our attention. Many cultural

interventions, social marketing campaigns, books,

magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television

programs, films, charitable causes and other

information design projects urgently require our

expertise and help.

We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of

more useful, lasting and democratic forms of

communication - a mindshift away from product

marketing and toward the exploration and

production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of

debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is

running uncontested; it must be challenged by other

perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual

languages and resources of design.

In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original

call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With

the explosive growth of global commercial culture,

their message has only grown more urgent. Today,

we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more

decades will pass before it is taken to heart.

A design manifesto published

jointly by 33 signatories in:

Adbusters, the AIGA journal,

Blueprint, Emigre, Eye, Form, Items

fall 1999 / spring 2000

Foreword by

Chris Dixon, Adbusters

Introduction by

Rick Poynor

5

Signed by:

Jonathan Barnbrook

Nick Bell

Andrew Blauvelt

Hans Bockting

Irma Boom

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Max Bruinsma

Siân Cook

Linda van Deursen

Chris Dixon

William Drenttel

Gert Dumbar

Simon Esterson

Vince Frost

Ken Garland

Milton Glaser

Jessica Helfand

Steven Heller

Andrew Howard

Tibor Kalman

Jeffery Keedy

Zuzana Licko

Ellen Lupton

Katherine McCoy

Armand Mevis

J. Abbott Miller

Rick Poynor

Lucienne Roberts

Erik Spiekermann

Jan van Toorn

Teal Triggs

Rudy VanderLans

Bob Wilkinson

and many more

12

WORKINGWITH

VALUES

As a freelancer newly started in the

design business, I’ve been on

the receiving end of many such a

comment from helpful, if somewhat

jaded friends and co-workers. The perception

of business as a sphere of life where values are

not just out of place but in fact detrimental to

success is a surprisingly persistent one. Call

me naive but I don’t agree. There is no reason

why values should not be a part of a business

strategy, particularly that of a design business.

As designers we find ourselves in a field rife

with loose ethics. Having worked for the last

year in the property advertising industry I can

personally testify to the sorts of subtle deceit

and exaggerations that we perpetuate every day

in our work for what are all too often products,

services and ideas of no particular benefit to

anyone.

Applying a system of values and ethics in your

design practice is almost certainly something

you ve thought about at some point or another,

probably in some hypothetical question relating

to doing work for a cigarette manufacturer, oil

company or the like. However I think a fuller

more complete approach is necessary. In this

article I’ve briefly examined a few of the issues

that all designers should seriously consider.

Choosing Projects from an Ethical

Standpoint

Touched on in many a university course and

perhaps the most obvious ethical issue in the

creative industries, this can be quite a dilemma

for the struggling agency.

In my own experience I was once approached

to produce a string of adult sites complete

with all the latest bells and whistles and with

the prospect of a very large sum of money. I

immediately said ‘yes, lets have a meeting!” but

as the day proceeded my conscience started to

kick in. I tried to convince myself that as long as

I wasn’t creating the content I could stay neutral,

and that if I didn’t do the job somebody else

would. In the end, though, I decided I couldn’t

feel right about it and called the whole thing

off. While not everyone might feel the same way

about adult sites, it’s important to have some

general guidelines as to the sort of projects you

think are ethically sound.

The hard part is sticking to them no matter

how much money is waved in front of you. It’s

tempting to give in to the money, or the alluring

idea that it doesn’t really make a difference what

you do, but for your own sake, be prepared

to take a stand on issues you care about and

to draw the line on projects which you think

detrimental to society. In the end, the global

community is made up of nothing more than

individuals making small decisions every day,

but its these decisions that affect us all.

As a designer you have a lot of power held in

your hands. You have the power to make almost

anything seem desirable or even essential, to

change the way people see whats around them. 13

“

” This may sound exaggerated, but consider how

important Hitler saw his propoganda ministry.

It was paramount to his success in getting

Germany to its pre-WW2 attitudes. While you

will doubtless never be involved in anything

so overtly wrong, you should bear in mind the

implications your work has the potential to have.

This is the real world, there are no friends in business, it’s all about the bottom line

Here are some examples of the sorts

of projects I personally would stay

away from.

This is by no means a definitive list, but

some areas our practice chooses to

avoid:

1. Anything detrimental to the

environment

2. Overfishing, uranium mining, etc.

3. Gambling, Cigarettes, Alcohol

4. X-rated adult projects

5. Marketing aimed squarely at children

for products which have little real

benefit

6. Companies on the global offenders

list (companies that use child labour

in the making of their wares, take

advantage of developing countries,

or grow genetically modified

ingredients)

I have been amazed by how many creatives

have sung the praises of certain multi-nationals

for their huge budgets and creative thinking

without a minutes thought to where this money

is coming from. These companies can often

seem like a dream client, until you realise that

their huge budgets are made off the back of

child labour or shoddy environmental practices.

Creating value, not just making money

This is by far the most subtle issue and involves

a bit of mindshift. When considering your

business it is very tempting to think of everything

in terms of the bottom line, to measure success

only in monetary terms. Now I am by no

means saying you should forget that aspect of

business, particularly if you want to last out the

year. However there is more to what you are

doing than just bringing in money, there are a

variety of benefits that you and your business

will be providing for those around you. The best

way to illustrate this idea is with an example.

Imagine a hypothetical business, lets call it

Anderson & Sculthorp Design (ASD) with ten

employees in various capacities. Now even if

ASD were to only be just breaking even every

year the business would still have value, and I'm

not referring to the business assets. There are

ten people whose livelihood is provided, who are

gaining experience and living off ASD, and there

are clients who have a relationship and rely on

the ASD team and so on.

Taking this to its logical conclusion

means thinking of a business as an entity

interconnected with those around it. Rather

like a parent might provide for their family,

in the same way a business provides for its

employees and clients. My own agency Good

spends a significant amount of money for web

hosting every year. While we on-sell much of

that hosting we also provide free hosting for

organisations who we think shouldn't have to

pay, or put another way, who have better uses

for that money. Thus our agency is providing a

service to the community and regardless of its

profitability has created value.

Free Pitching

Every design practice is called on at some time

or another to provide a free pitch for a job. You

know the story, great client, big project, you

could really use the cash flow, but they have

asked for some ideas and mocks up front - for

free.

It may seem harmless enough, especially if you

get the job, but what you are doing is effectively

crippling the design industry. Every time an

agency pitches for free they are creating the

impression that design is cheap and that it's

not really necessary to pay for their or any other

design agency's time.

14

“ ”

Huge budgets are made off the back of child labour or shoddy environmental practices

15

No other service based industry provides a

sample of their services for free. Have you ever

been to a mechanic who said they'd do an oil

check for free in the hope that you'd get them

to permanently service your car? or how about

a doctor who gave you your first visit to see if

the "relationship gelled"? Of course not, but

this is the sort of thing that design agencies do

all the time, and unfortunately clients ask for

constantly. By all means show your portfolio,

chat to the client, give costings and quotes, but

don't work for free.

Sustainable Materials

Interesting designs and formats with unusual

materials are probably the highlight of print

work. However, its important to bear in mind

when choosing stocks, sizes and materials the

environmental cost of what you are doing. There

are a variety of things you can do in this regard

too, for example choosing recyclable materials

over non-recyclable, biodegradable over non-

biodegradable, keeping paper sizes relatively

standard to prevent huge wastage in offcuts,

selecting a printer or manufacturer that has a

commitment to the environment and so on.

The key factor to remember is that in virtually

any print job, there will be a run of thousands

of copies, so a small change will make a large

difference. It may cost slightly more (though

certainly not always), but you can simply

pass this cost on to the client, explaining the

reasoning. If you aren t proposing anything

outrageous and they are a reasonable sized

client, they will more than likely accept, no sweat

off your back and you can sleep better at night

knowing you’ve made a contribution.

Telling it like it is

Now we all know that advertising is about

glossing over a product's failings and focusing

on its strengths and this is a great way to

market things. Occasionally however advertising

falls into the domain of outright lies. I once built

a website for a property development billed

as being the ultimate in design and location.

The property itself, a perfectly ordinary looking

building in an ordinary location near an airport

with planes constantly flying overhead. Now I

dutifully went about my job and listening to the

client went about cropping images in such a

way as to only highlight parts of the building,

zooming in on the view of the coastline to make

it seem closer and so on. Who loses out in such

a scenario? The average guy on the street who

is out buying a home. Maybe he's a bad guy,

maybe he's a good guy, maybe he's you. We all

hope that once the guy gets there he'll make his

own decision, but this stuff works, so it seems

he doesn't. Why do sports cars have half naked

women draped over them? Why do they then

sell so well? We are all so much easier to fool

than we'd like to admit. The point is, advertising

is all well and good, but you should always use

Left:Evidence of Child labouringin Bangladesh

your best judgement in marketing products and

services and keep things in check, exactly the

way I didn't.

Ethically Sound

These few points are just the tip of the iceberg,

and there will be issues that you believe in as

an individual more than others. But hopefully

the distinctions that we at Good believe in

have got you thinking. If our businesses are

ethically sound, we will have a more prosperous

community.

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ZAPPOSUSTAINABILITY

BEER COASTER

2 4 6 8 10

zappo-berlin.de

2 4 6 8 10

zappo-berlin.de

Good Design

Innovation

Process Management

Sustainability

Planning

Design Repertoire

Design andSustainability

form and aestheticssubject and functionsemantics

usageproductionaccessibilitymaterialtechnologiesintelligibility

physical and intel-lectual resources,tools/aids

ecological,economicand socialfactors

designfunctionproductionusereusedisposalanalysis

concept developmentdesign managementimplementation and verification

Reduce Material

paperprinting inknumber of copies/print run

choice of paperrecycled materialsprinting inkfinishing

materialprintingfinishing protection

optimize the workflowavoid mistakesideal cooperationsregional collaboration

Replace Material

Production Processes

Recyclability

Adapt to Product’sLife Cycle

Printing andSustainability

choice of paperroutes of transportprintersfinishing

Reduce EnergyConsumption deinking,

make materials easy to separate and reuse

With this coaster, sustainability becomes a handy,

easy to understand, constant companion. It allows

you to immediately analyze, evaluate and improve

any project during a meeting with clients or partners.

The coaster helps you to have an open, goal-oriented

discussion and encourages you to find alternatives in

design and printing. These 85 square centimeters of

cardboard show all the important issues and all factors

that need to be considered in a designer’s work and its

subsequent realization.

How does that work?

With the help of the radar or spider chart [1] it is

easy to evaluate and compare a product according

to certain criteria. For printing and design we have

devised six main criteria each. And each of them is

defined by further points of action. So now you can

quickly navigate the areas of sustainable design and

sustainable printing with little effort.

“Design and Sustainability” facilitates the complex,

process-oriented approach to design. It is the basis

for the way in which a modern designer works. It is

important to remain open-minded and to constantly

broaden your horizon, for applying the principles

successfully to your work.

“Printing and Sustainability“ focuses on the

environmentally friendly production. Of course you

need a thorough knowledge of materials, technologies

and processes. The search for alternative options is

at the center of both “Design and Sustainability” and

“Printing and Sustainability“.

How does it actually work?

You rate each criterion on the concentric circles (1

= worst to 10 = best), i.e. how well a solution meets

or should meet a criterion. This can be based on an

objective analysis or your subjective assessment. You

need to mark each solution with a different color and

connect each point of a color with a straight line. The

result gives you rating profiles for each solution. Do not

forget to include solutions already realized.

Solutions with lines furthest from the center are better

than those with lines closer to the origin. The area itself

has no meaning as it is defined through the individual

weighting of various(?) criteria.

This process should be iterative. You should constantly

strive to find an even more sustainable solution.

And it’s actually quite fun to do! Try it.

Christhard Landgraf ©

2012, zappo, Berlin

2 4 6 8 10

zappo-berlin.de

2 4 6 8 10

zappo-berlin.de

Good Design

Innovation

Process Management

Sustainability

Planning

Design Repertoire

Design andSustainability

form and aestheticssubject and functionsemantics

usageproductionaccessibilitymaterialtechnologiesintelligibility

physical and intel-lectual resources,tools/aids

ecological,economicand socialfactors

designfunctionproductionusereusedisposalanalysis

concept developmentdesign managementimplementation and verification

Reduce Material

paperprinting inknumber of copies/print run

choice of paperrecycled materialsprinting inkfinishing

materialprintingfinishing protection

optimize the workflowavoid mistakesideal cooperationsregional collaboration

Replace Material

Production Processes

Recyclability

Adapt to Product’sLife Cycle

Printing andSustainability

choice of paperroutes of transportprintersfinishing

Reduce EnergyConsumption deinking,

make materials easy to separate and reuse

29

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TURNAROUND

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The Sami have a nice picture to describe the view on the future:

There is a lot of truth in it - philosophically. Practically I have never seen a Sami going backwards. They look forwards to avoid getting lost in the woods or destroy the traces of the reindeer. Of course nobody can see the future, but one can estimate it.

This estimating process is called a scenario, building on a statistical evaluation. The result is called a trend, a projection of an existing direction within society into the future, basing on mathematical and statistical calculations. Trend is not another word for fashion and a trend cannot be made; it can only be made usable. A mega-trend is a long-term projection of the social development. As designers, we have to be aware of the trend, follow the development and translate it into visible items.

Example:The public discussion is dealing with the new media. Politicians discuss legal action against data pirates, downloading music illegally. Copyright laws break down worldwide. The big record companies have a dramatic loss of sales due to the pirates.Innovative and successful products today are small high-tech devices that ensure permanent access to the individual and social information network.

People don't want to buy a CD with 25 songs just because they like one. They like to sample their own individual music program. And they want to listen to their own music wherever and whenever they want. While the music industry called for legal action and politicians began to prepare steps to reduce freedom, Apple assumed that the intention of people is not to do something illegal, but to use the possibilities of new technologies. So their answer was to make downloading legal, easy and affordable.

iTunes and iPod are product developments basing on trend research and decisions following changing consumer behaviour. iTunes had 100 million legal downloads within 3 months. All of a sudden the future of the music industry looks bright again, even brighter than before. They have made the step from a material product to an immaterial product.

Designers play a major role in heating up mass consumption and we complain about this capitalistic world - but we helped to make it. We can also play a role in shaping a new and hopefully better world. It is not a secret that if we continue our mass consumption and throw-away mentality we will have used up most of the world's resources within less than 50 years. Society has to learn to save as many resources as possible. If we could manage to use half of what we use today, we would gain time to find new technologies and materials. Maybe.

The era of industrialised mass consumption is on decline. A new mega-trend is coming up but the trend lines have not crossed yet. Experts expect this to happen within the next 5 to 10 years. A change in mega-trend happens once or twice in a century, and we have the privilege to experience such a change: The trend of immaterial mass use. The market structures and routines are not developed yet. But as you can see in the example of iTunes, it is under rapid development. This trend will change the design profession as well. The key-word is:

Sustainable Design:Until today, a designer is paid to produce the prototypes for the industrial production of communication products. The vast majority of our jobs is connected to marketing and aims at selling more products. Even if you illustrate a children book, the interest of the publisher is to produce a material product that attracts

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As total design-fee they offer 3.5 million Euro.

For every page you need less without loosing communicational impact you get a bonus fee of 10 000 Euro!

For every page more your fee will be reduced for 10 000 Euro. Would you propose the additional pages of scenario 1 because the design would look better? Imagine you would save all those pages because you would find a new way of getting the message to the reader - would this be a bad deal for your client?

Why would someone be interested in offering such a project where you get more for doing less or less for doing more? The answer is simple: The client would save a lot of money because of your intelligent proposal. Less paper, less printing costs, less weight to transport, less petrol for trucks. The savings would be millions of Euros.

Forests would not be cut and petrol would not be spoiled. Time, energy, resources and money would be saved but, on the other hand, you would be responsible for printers losing work, paper mills closing, and truck-drivers becoming unemployed.

How could you solve the issue?You need to analyse the communication process: What is important and relevant? What part of the message can be taken out without losing information? How can we use existing media in a more sophisticated way? Identify weaknesses and look for possibilities to improve the process and reduce costs. This is part of the design project to be visualised, documented and presented to the client. Visualising processes is an important and growing field of activity within our profession [information design].

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clients to buy it and provides a return in investment. One can look at design from a more idealistic and ethical point of view to see the cultural importance, the artistic aspect. You might not like to hear this but designers often overestimate the importance of this cultural aspect. The majority of our clients see us as executive staff in the preproduction stage of a project to improve the sales.

In most of the cases today the designer is not asked to communicate a message. We are commissioned to design a CD-cover, a catalogue, a brochure, a corporate identity, an illustration for a book, a packaging: Material products. Let's imagine 2 possible scenarios of our future as visual communication designers.

Scenario 1:Imagine a global furniture distributor asking you to design their next catalogue:

320 pages, format 210x250, CMYK, 100 million issues, split in 20 regional issues and languages, including Chinese. Fee for the design per page 1 000 Euro. Design of the regional versions 500 Euro per page. Total 3.52 million Euro.

What if you find out that the project would look better with 40 pages more? Ask for 440 000 Euro more! More pages, more work, more money.

Scenario 2:The same client comes up to you and asks you to design their new product communication concept. So far they had a catalogue with 320 pages, format 210x250, CMYK, 100 million issues, split in 20 regional issues and languages.

35

You will be able to visualise that the weak points of the process are:

a. the dissemination of the catalogue b. the waste of information and material

A consumer who wants to buy new furniture for the sleeping room because he moves together with his girlfriend might not yet be interested in information about children's furniture at this stage.

It takes time to transport the product to the consumer and the catalogue as such has a given lifespan of actuality, including the need to fix prices over this period. If the transport of the information could happen online, many problems would be solved.

But some simply want the good old catalogue. Why not make this printed catalogue a beautiful book of inspirations, sold via Amazon or available in the client's stores, with a link to a pricelist with technical data online? Instead of incurring costs, you could generate new income. I guess that an issue of 1 million would be considered as a bestseller. And it can be organised to be printed just-in-time, printing on demand. The problem is to assure that the consumer can print out the additional facts he wants with his own facilities: Decentralised printing on demand.

If you come up with such a proposal you must be well prepared and have good arguments. To change old habits takes an effort. You will have more enemies than friends. Unfortunately visual communication designers in general are not seen as competent to design the communication process and the emphasis of the design education has so far been more product- than process-oriented. If we want to contribute to the new trend and make

design sustainable we have to leave the product orientation and become process oriented.

Sustainability means to avoid production. So we have to put the focus on the process. It is not the media that counts but the communication. We design visually perceived communication.

Communication is a process, not a product.

icogradaIDA

leading creatively