"We were recently con tacted by Fran Hope, a graphic design degree stu dent at the Uni ver sity of the West of Eng land, Bris tol. Fran is research ing design ethics, specif i cally the prac tices of com pa nies ‘who put eth i cal val ues before mak ing a profit’ and put a num ber of questions to us, some of which we found par tic u larly inter est ing – more so than usual – per haps because Fran’s per spec tive is informed by some time in the industry.
Fran agreed that it might be more con struc tive and use ful to post and answer the ques tions posed here, so that other stu dents could share in the responses and per haps ini ti ate some dia logue. Responses are given by Paul Buck (PB) and Ela Kos maczewska (EK) and we’d be happy to take up any fur ther dis cus sion in the com ments below."
1. Are you famil iar with the First Things First manifesto?
(PB & EK) Absolutely. We’re assum ing you’re aware that the orig i nal man i festo was pub lished by Ken Gar land in 1964, and updated by Adbusters in 2000, endorsed by con tem po rary prac ti tion ers, writ ers and aca d e mics of the day, many of whom are still promi nent. There’s an inter est ing archive of com ment on and crit i cism of the 2000 man i festo here.
2. Were you con cerned with ethical design as a student?
(PB) To a degree, yes. The var i ous projects I under took dur ing my time on a degree course were gen er ally, but not exclu sively ori en tated towards social issues or activism (eg. the o ret i cal mate ri als for an age con cern style char ity, and sub jects like the occu pa tion of Tibet). I think these choices were a reflec tion of a dis taste I had for self-motivated projects that con ve niently focussed on sub jects and audi ences that the designer already had an affin ity for, or could pre-qualify an aes thetic solu tion that best suited them. At that time, I had no appre ci a tion for con cerns about the sus tain abil ity of print design, or insight into business/brand ethics, just an incli na tion to dif fer en ti ate my work and skills. My eth i cal con cerns as a designer really took form when I began work and inad ver tently found myself assist ing var ious brands that I per ceived to be obnox ious and harmful.
(EK) Yes, prior to becom ing a graphic design stu dent I had already devel oped an inter est in envi ron men tal con cerns and ani mal rights issues. Some ‘live projects’ at col lege enabled us to work with clients who were in need of design assis tance and we were encour aged to seek out such projects for our selves. This allowed us to focus on key areas of inter est – at that time I worked with a domes tic abuse sup port group, which was an amaz ing expe ri ence. We also had a mod ule – be it only one lec ture – which dealt with the role of ethics and the designer and helped me reflect upon my own inter ests and ideology.
3. Do you feel that by labeling your selves as ethical you open your selves up to scrutiny in every area of the way your com pany oper ates? (for example, using a carbon neutral web host ing ser vice, or bank ing with an eth i cal bank)
(PB) Def i nitely, but I can’t say I feel we’ve been scru ti nised. We’re a very small com pany and, as such, there’s cer tain aspects of our busi ness ‘foot print’ (mainly envi ron men tal) that we find dif fi cult to fully con trol. For exam ple, we can choose our bank ing providers (Co-operative Bank) but our office arrange ments don’t allow us to be selec tive about our energy sup plier. In some respects, I think that ser vice pro vi sion choices of this kind can pro vide a smoke screen for more prob lem atic issues – it’s easy to switch energy sup pli ers while, profes sion ally, you con tinue to work uncrit i cally with and sup port some of the nas ti est brands in exchange for finan cial reward. It’s obvi ously impor tant to make eth i cal ser vice choices wher ever you can, but it’s also vital to do this crit i cally – I’d pre fer to see respon si ble lifestyle and busi ness atti tudes become firmly estab lished than a reliance on the con cept of car bon neu tral ity – ret ro spec tively address ing a car bon foot print by some debat able means.
(EK) Poten tially so, but this is not a prob lem. We know it’s a bold state ment to make but if we claim to be some thing, we must be pre pared to jus tify our position.
4. How do you feel about the way your phil an thropic approach at Zero fee (such as your ‘design dona tion’ pol icy) might be per ceived as a pro mo tional tool?
(PB) Very inter est ing ques tion. Our design dona tion pol icy pre dates Zero fee as a com pany entity – it led us to the desire and pos si bil ity of start ing a design stu dio of this kind, so the pol icy is inex tri ca ble and unavoid able (our name was a great con cern to us, since it orig inated as one means of com mu ni cat ing what we offered). While we’ll always talk about our pro bono activ ity, we’ve seen it as a need to make our ori gins and inter ests clear (it was retained, rather than replaced when we ’started up’ as a com pany because it always was a good con ver sa tion starter but, equally, a dis trac tion at times). In my expe ri ence, the large major ity of our cur rent or prospec tive com mer cial clients have no prac ti cal inter est in our design dona tion work – once we begin and con tinue to engage with them, their inter est lies solely in design abil ity, expe ri ence, pro fes sion al ism, costs and per son al ity. We’ve always under stood this and always wanted to empha sise design ahead of any phil an thropic detail. If our design dona tion has a pro mo tional, business-generating poten tial, then we’ve failed mis er ably to exploit it.
It might sound pretty crude but I’m pretty clear that I don’t care if our design dona tion story and work is per ceived cyn i cally – it’s some thing we choose to do, love to do and we’ve never devi ated from it, nor – as far as I can tell – directly ben e fit ted from it in a busi ness sense. I don’t really feel that we’ve really pro moted that aspect of our work to prospec tive clients or inter ested par ties – per haps oth ers would dis agree, but I don’t think our site, blog or Twit ter use reflects an empha sis on dona tion, beyond describ ing it where appro pri ate and nec es sary. I’m per son ally more inter ested in the eth i cal char ac ter is tics of the com pany but, like design dona tion, I don’t think any client past or present has elected to work with us on that basis alone – it would (and should) never super sede con sid er a tion of effec tive design and experience.
(EK) I have no prob lem with how we’re per ceived. We know the donated work we cre ate makes a dif fer ence to those we help and at the end of the day that’s all that mat ters. If a com mer cial client responds well because of that work, then that’s a great thing, as we prob ably view the role of design in a sim i lar way.
5. Do you con sider the long term changes that are bought about by the projects you under take and is time taken to dis cuss them in work place?
(PB) It’s impor tant that we con sider the pos si bil i ties of long-term, mean ing ful out comes when we choose to under take a project, but pri mar ily in terms of the ‘capa bil i ties’ of the organ i sa tion behind it and their objec tives in that par tic u lar case. If it’s a design dona tion scenario, then the intent and pos si bil i ties of the project, as we per ceive them, are pri mary con sid er a tions when choos ing to com mit to the work. If it’s a com mer cial project, then we’re more con cerned about ensur ing that the out come isn’t going to be harm ful, or that the organ isa tion behind the project doesn’t have a track-record of doing harm. In either case, we always con sider the effec tive ness of a par tic u lar exer cise – not just from a visual design per spec tive – and do our best to relate this to the client. I guess what I’m try ing to say is that, if a project is mis guided in the first instance, great design work is not going to save it or help it over come the inher ent prob lems it has. We try to iden tify such prob lems and either avoid the project entirely or offer input that we hope might help direct it in a more pos i tive direction. Some times that’s suc cess ful, other times it’s not – where we have long-term rela tion ships with the clients con cerned, it’s usu ally more the for mer than the latter.
(EK) Agreed.
