Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Socially responsible design being singled out as an area of study.

Call it what you will, social awareness, design for good, or ethnographic design why must we separate what should be practiced every day? Bottom-up design practices should be the norm, replacing the antiquated practices of yesteryear. Technically, at least from this author’s perspective, socially responsible design has been watered down, masked as being design with a socially conscious message. But it is not, nor is it a practice that is new.

Ideas come in waves are acted upon for commercial gain and then left in ruins for the newest trend. Not too many years ago everyone was going green. The green movement spanned industries until green became too expensive to sustain itself through an economic downturn. The blue-collar, middle-class American no longer could afford green products. The green movement became associated with the hipster/liberal crowd thus ostracizing a large portion of consumers. Green was no longer seen as a positive element for change, rather a push for change from a group who most could not relate.

Imagine, however, if designers, manufacturers, companies, retailers, etc. never leveraged the sustainability of new products. Instead, new sustainable products slowly replaced the old ones on the shelf. Remove all the marketing, messages, and design that accompanied greener products and take away the consumer’s opportunity to choose between good and bad. The only option offered is good, clean, and green. By ignoring the marketability of sustainable products and focusing on changing what and how we create products, we could have enacted more social change resulting in an abundance of green products on the shelves today.

Socially responsible design practices must be considered no matter the situation. Whether exploring a product’s market through big budget ethnographic research trips or designing for a low budget print run, the way we work as a creative industry must change. Can design change the world? No, but by changing the way we work, we can certainly be a measure of influence to others.