Ethical Design Education

" Good design is responsible design"

The presentation discussed how we should decide what to design, or if we should design it. How will it effect the community? the world? Are we responsible for that?

I think that we defiantly are, each individual gives something to the society and as designers we play a big role in that. I am a big believer of design changing the community and therefore the world, and if we go about it the wrong way and the results are bad, we are defiantly responsible for that. Unfortunately, being ethical or environmentally responsible isn't always easy, for example , if you want to buy recycled paper in saudi , you cant find any and you have buy from abroad which makes it very expensive.

However, I still think we can change some of our approaches when designing to make our society a better place. Fortunately saudis are starting to realize their mistakes. For example a campaign by the name " friends of jeddah" started last year, where a group of divers cleaned the red sea. ( I included a picture of the red sea to show how its worth saving).

At the end of the presentation, they asked " how would you encourage people in saudi to be more responsible towards their community?". In my opinion, we should start from the very beginning. We cant ask a 30 year old thats been littering all his life to suddenly stop, but we can teach our next generations what's right and wrong and imprint that way of life in them so that they grow up being ethical and environmentally responsible without thinking twice, and by doing that we will at least change our world.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=119768&d=2&m=3&y=2009

Socially Responsible Advertising, Altruism or Exploitation?

The presentation discussed Cause-related marketing and how it could either be:

Altruism: As in actually supporting the cause , or Exploitation : As in taking advantage of the cause to help promote their company without actually helping.

The presentation raised a lot of questions not just generally but personally, as in what would each one of us do or how would each one of us think when it comes to cause related marketing...

In my opinion if the company really wanted to help the cause, they would simply donate enough money from their profits without making special offers on their products. However, these company want to publicize their good deeds in order to win over consumers and they have a right to that but are they going about it the right way?

As a consumer , I would like to research if the company actually does help first before i buy anything from them, but when i go in a supermarket, i don't have the time to do that.

When it comes to Saudi Arabia, the marketing scene is just booming fast. Our society is a very people friendly society and that comes from the teachings of our beautiful religion ; Islam, and so companies realize that. They realize we are week when it comes to the chance of helping other people in need. Thats why the use of cause related marketing in saudi has spread and is working very well for companies.

They gave really good examples in their presentation of both local and international companies with cause related adds such as , " Body shop, Pampers, Benneton and Al-Baik".

Personally, as a consumer,when i go into a supermarket and want to buy shampoo for example, if i see two kinds of shampoos that i would use but one has an offer that says if i buy it 5 S.R. of it will go to a starving family somewhere than i would automatically go for that one. It wouldn't cross my mind that they might be lying about it just for publicity. However, as a designer, if i had an offer of designing for a cause related company that payed me less than i would research that company first and find out if they are honest enough and if they are i would go for it.So the question is , are companies actually helping the cause? and if so how much?

http://www.unicefusa.org/hidden/pampers-usfund.html

My willingness to lie

This is my list of 12 steps that increase to some major indiscretion:

1. Designing a package to look bigger on the shelf

2. Designing an ad for a slow, boring film to make it seem a light-hearted comedy.

3. Designing a crest for a new vineyard to suggest that it has been in business for a long time.

4. Designing a package for children whose contents you know are low in nutrition value and high in sugar content.

5. Designing a jacket for a book whose sexual content you find personally repellent.

6. Designing an advertising campaign for a company with a history of known discrimination in minority hiring.

7. Designing a promotion for a diet product that i know doesn't work.

8.Designing a medal using steel from the World Trade Centre to be sold as a profit-making souvenir of september 11.

9. Designing a brochure for an SUV that turned over frequently in emergency conditions and was known to have killed 150 people.

10. Designing a line of T-shirts for a manufacturer that employs child labor.

11. Designing an ad for a political candidate whose policies i believe would be harmful to the general public.

12. Designing ad for a product whose frequent use could result in the user's death.

* The reason i think "Designing an ad for a political candidate whose policies i believe would be harmful to the general public" should be # 11 on my list is for multiple reasons. To begin with, in harming the public I would obviously harm myself, not to mention my friends and family. I would be responsible for harming possibly an entire generation and maybe even future generations, I could never live with that kind of guilt or face the consequences. In addition, if I don't believe in that candidate, by designing that ad I would be a complete hypocrite and that's not something I want to be known for. As a designer I have a goal of changing the world for a better place through my designs and that ad would steer me in the opposite direction of that road. Also as a designer, I don't want to be known for designing misleading ads, I would loose clients that way because people will loose trust in me and wont believe in anything I'm trying to sell with my designs.Paul Arden said in his book ( It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be) that if you are involved in something that goes wrong, never blame others. Blame no one but yourself.