Task 5 - Triangulation

What is good in design?
Example 1

Source

Example 2

Source

Many different anthers have been discussing Graphic Design and how ethical it is, or mainly how ethical it isn't. Garland, K. 'The First Things First Manifesto (1964); 

Poyner, Lasn et al (2000) ' The First Things First Manifesto 2000'; Poyner, R. (2000) 'First 

Things First Revisited' and Beirut, M. (2007) 'Ten Footnotes to a Manifesto'. The first things first manifesto written in 1964 argued that 'graphic designers, photographers and students who have been brought up in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable means for our talent' (Garland, K. 1964) Garland is suggesting that designers no longer design to communicate a message to the masses about something that needs to be know, but now designers are selling products that people don't need to them. The second example 2 supports this as alcohol isn't something people need in ever day life, it is a luxury that is actually quite bad for you, yet the way it has been designed makes the consumer feel that they need this product. He states 'We hope that our society will tire of gimmick merchants, status salesmen and hidden persuaders, and that the prior call on our skills will be for worthwhile purposes' (Garland, K. 1964. Trying to show people that the designers skills can be used for good purposes not just for consumerism. 

Smirnoff is a good example of how a company can be both ethical and non-ethical. Source 1 shows a campaign designed by Smirnoff to show gay rights and equality, this is done in a simple yet effective way. Using their products so that they can advertise the fact that they support gay rights, and think that people have the freedom to chose. This would be considered by Garland to be ethical design, showing that design can be produced for good reasons. This would be supported by Rick Poynor, who revisited the First Things First Manifesto, 'it's possible for visual communicators to discover alternative ways of operating in design.'. Although the second example shows an advert simply trying to sell the product. It is a product that is bad for you, something that isn't essential, and has been majorly sexualised so that it will sell better. Using a naked women in the design will automatically make people look, because the eye is drawn to skin, and will automatically grab the attention of the audience. The advert is suggesting that their product is "pure beauty" like the naked women, it is also suggesting that it will make your life better, when in fact this isn't true. '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.' (Emerged, 2000) this is suggesting that designers are changing the way the consumer thinks about a product, for example, making the Smirnoff advert appear beautiful and something that is clean and clear and will help your life in some way, although this is not true. 'The evidence for it is all around us in the ugliness with which we have to live.' (Poynor, R.) 

Although Garland states 'By far the greatest effort of those working in the advertising industry are wasted on these trivial purposes, which contribute little or nothing to our national prosperity' (Garland, K. 1964), Emigre would argue that '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.'. Although it would be nice to produce ethical graphic design all the time, and always be designing for a good cause, and helping people, this is not how the world works, and designers need money just like everyone else does to live. Which Poynor agrees with saying 'seeing an opportunity to reach national and global audiences, were only too happy to take advertising's dollar.'. Designers do have a small responsibility for making the world a better place, but it is not their sole purpose, they will do what they need to do to continue. 'Too bad; designers actually can change the world for the better by making the complicated simple and finding beauty in the truth. (Ten Footnotes).