“The Designer versus the Client, the Consumer and Making a Living:
Can the Designer Produce Responsible Work Consistently?”

Never before has the consumer had so much product choice, told in every advert on every billboard, TV channel or magazine page that what they have is not enough; advertising and marketing industries are booming (J. Blythe 1997); design, however, is not: it is an industry is being devalued by a “dissemination of worthless products” (E. Manzini 1995). A more mature and responsible design ethic has been considered over the years in academia. But could such a responsible ethic be implemented in a mass consumerist climate where the designer is so often only the provider of a service? This study sought to find out whether the designer can act responsibly in terms of sustainability, moral and social ethics and safety, while doing as the client requests in a consumer–orientated society. The aim was to provoke thought on a positive design future and inform further research into perceptions of design responsibility and quality. ............................................................... . Through use of questionnaires and interviews with 81 designers and 45 consumers, it can be seen that presently, the average designer can not design responsibly consistently and that this fact is largely ignored by the academic fraternity. Designers were shown to want to be able to be responsible but unable to carry it out. These findings highlight the need to form stronger, collaborative links between those in industry and those at the top of it or in academia and the need for designers to instil design responsibility into everything they do. By following this more responsible ethic clients and consumers might begin to realise and accept the necessity that is responsible design.

Material: Lots of paper

© J.Godfrey Wood 2004