David Responsibility of the designer, hmmmmmmmm

In this day and age, where companies fight for power and consumer interest, there is a very blurred moral line; many companies while portraying a very wholesome image are much the opposite while conducting business or manufacturing and distributing their products.

A Graphic Designer is employed to portray an image to the public, a representation of a company, as this is the Designers main objective, moral responsibility to the public becomes, in part, irrelevant.

In researching this topic I found that the idea of personal moral responsibility was very loosely documented, leaving me with the feeling that as far as this subject is concerned the designer is exempt.

“There is certainly nothing wrong with protecting our professional interests and the interests of our clients, and you'll find content to that effect in most statements of ethical practices created by designer organizations around the world. However, I would argue that our single, most significant contribution to society would be to make sure that the communications we create are actually useful to those for whom they're intended—and that this concern must be elevated to the same level of importance as those previously discussed.” Paul Nini, Associate Professor in the Department of Design at Ohio State University - http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/in-search-of-ethics-in-graphic-design


I would have to agree strongly with the above statement, my responsibility as a designer to employer and society is to use my experience in this field to create the meeting point for both entities, and in doing this I would hope to begin a productive relationship between supplier and consumer.


The only way that I as a designer would suffer was if I designed against my prior knowledge of company’s underhanded and unhealthy practices, portraying anything different to my knowledge would leave me morally responsible. The question is! Would I take on the job?