OUGD601: Secondary Research- Eye Magazine "Being Good"

http://www.eyemagazine.com/opinion/article/being-good1

'The current interest in ethics and its relationship to design seems a jolly ‘good’ thing to me – indicative of increased scrutiny of what designers offer and what they leave behind. But this is a convoluted and protean business and is not to be confused with the notion of ‘selling designer souls’. This rather comical phrase is sometimes misunderstood as shorthand for ethical awareness, but it focuses the debate on the individual designer soul – ethics is a bit bigger than that.'

'Within philosophy, ethics is the branch of knowledge concerned with moral principles. This is not primarily in order to develop strategies by which to judge one another. It is about the pursuit of truth – questioning whether there is such a thing as the property of ‘goodness’'

'When ‘ethics’ and ‘graphic design’ are put in the same sentence, two subjects inevitably come to mind. One is that of production methods – recycled paper and so on. The other is the client. ‘The client’ is shorthand for ‘the client’s message’. The job of graphic design is generally to persuade – so do we have a responsibility to be mindful of what we are persuading people to do or does this role as censor sit uncomfortably alongside tolerance and open-mindedness?'

'The free market has delivered enormous choice, but design plays a part in encouraging insatiable desire – with the resultant discontent and environmental consequences. Capitalism thrives by encouraging entrepreneurialism – which is perfect for many designers – but design is a competitive business that requires enormous self-belief and self-determination, and therefore engenders insecurity and envy in its practitioners. Does being successful within this framework necessitate bad behaviour? Should we be more critical of what we consider to be design achievement?'

'For many designers the property of goodness lies primarily in aesthetics. When a piece of work is deemed ‘good’, really what we mean is either that it is to our taste or that we think it has merit for expressing the zeitgeist or being ground-breaking in some way.'

'However, if we consider aesthetics more deeply, it relates directly to ‘goodness’ in an ethical sense. Is our work good if it engenders happiness, for example – if it adds to someone’s quality of life by making the world a more delightful or pleasurable place?'

'We don’t need to have experienced something to imagine what we would feel if we were in a similar situation to someone else. Almost all world religions and secular belief systems agree on one principle: the ‘golden rule’, or ethic of reciprocity, that says: ‘treat others as you would wish to be treated’. What this prescribes is consistency between our desires for ourselves and for others. Applying this rule within design might mean we are more polite, take plagiarism more seriously, argue for environmentally friendly print techniques or advocate inclusive design.'

'The value of considering ethics in any activity lies partly in being forced to question the fundamental nature of things. For designers, the eye may be the window of the soul – but one that is looking out rather than in.'