Ivory Towers

A reality check on designer’s attitudes of entitlement, ivory towers & the gross discrepancy between their practice of design and proclaimed goals.

In the first issue of the Parsons Magazine, I argued that, as designers, we must keep a closer eye on the restrictions placed upon our practices if we’re to prevent mediocrity. I was speaking about formalistic mediocrity, and in PM3, I want to continue to talk about the interwoven relationship of form and content. In my opinion, mediocrity in form is a symptom of mediocrity in thinking. This is touched on in two online articles, one by Ellen Lupton titled “What is Success?” and David Stairs’ “Why Design Won’t Save the World.” I believe that these essays dovetail with my central thesis: that typography and design’s mediocrity in present day forms and ideas stem from a discrepancy between our practice’s restrictions and our proclaimed imperatives.

Just as Ellen Lupton noted in her article, the criteria for success here at Parsons, as it is for most students, is finding a job after graduating. What is most troubling is the sense that a job is entitled to a Parsons student. Somehow, by default of coming to Parsons (or any major design school for that matter), is an excellent paying job with a diploma. I find this perplexing, as I favor the understanding that respect is earned, not demanded. But I digress, my point is not the angst felt by designers due to their economic needs and restrictions is wrong; assuming the prime motive for designers is to feed themselves. And there is nothing wrong with this imperative especially when it is matched with the restrictions placed by mounting student loans as well as the generally expensive cost of living in New York.

However, I’m not willing to forgive this tendency of mixing profession goals with the claim that design can “save the world,” or as Lupton wishes “…engaging with a social world: a world of clients and employers, but also of readers, users and other designers.” This reads as dishonest to me, driven by the need to speak to certain stakeholders of certain geo-political/economic standings. This currying of respect and value in the greater social world has resulted in the erection of an ivory tower. But instead of ivory, this tower is made of cards. This is the kind of foolishness and dishonesty that reduces design to the lowest levels of mediocrity in both the formal and the intellectual.

David Stairs considers this in his review of the Cooper-Hewitt’s “Design for the Other 90%” on the Design Observer blog with a general overview of the show stating, “essentially, ‘Design for the Other 90% is shot through with well-intentioned nostrums, familiar statistics, and a messianic calling to open people’s eyes to the disparities of the world.”

Yes, the projects were well-intentioned, but far from effective as David goes on to state the systematic flaws. “Too often, design solutions are remote solutions, even by those with years work in the developing world,” followed with, “the notion that technology can, more often than not, provide the solution. Designers are especially susceptible to this delusion, perhaps because they are often trained to solve immediate rather than long-term problems.” It is David’s last comment that strikes me as the ivory tower; the very way designers are taught is incompatible with Ellen’s hope for “engaging the social world.”

Could typography have stopped the dams from breaking in New Orleans? Bring the Junta down in Burma? No. However, it is important to remember that the issue at hand is the falsehood of our proclaimed imperatives, which brings wishful thinking, idealism and ultimately ivory towers; not the desire of design to help make the world a better place. Ultimately for a designer’s desire to “change the world,” he will eventually come to the bitter conclusion that design’s imperatives will fall hopelessly flat on these matters. But there is a need within all of us, independent of design that I believe is the only true reason to engage in the social world: our moral imperatives, which have been completely dismissed in our design education. It is only with the intersection of our moral priorities with design’s imperatives can we rise from our mediocre forms and thinking. This is an event I look forward to in the coming years, but along with comes the harsh reality that much in design methodology and education will have to change to allow this to happen.

Comments

[Michael Josefowicz]

Maybe a way to get out of this knot is to frame it as design can help the people who are changing the world, change it faster.

While designers have no special knowledge about how to change the world, and fall into the same trap of pride as other intellect workers, they do have the training and expertise to communicate ideas.

Citizens, including designers, are working every day to make a better world. Helping them communicate more effectively could be very helpful.

[Shane Johnston]

First, let me preface this with my belief that a designer, student or not, should not rely upon the institution of education for an education, but on his/her own passion for design for a true learning experience.

I am, like most puritanical designers, in complete agreeance with your argument. We as people must deal with our own cultural, enviromental, and social imperatives and if the discipline of design allows for a dynamic shift in the world around us, all the better. What is lacking though is the irrelevant nature of design when compared to the needs of the average human.

As a designer, decisions that must be made are not confined to the personal manifesto of beliefs but to the fiscal, personal, and spiritual needs of an individual. In this instance, design at best works in tangent with the designer. In the setting of a school, it is easy to forget that for the majority of designers, design can sometimes contain very small amounts of personal input. Much of the process is predecated by the 'creative directors', engineers and marketing personel. Design for profit has the tendancy of placing the designer low on the 'design' totem pole.

Until those that retain the majority of power (business men, corporate presidents, politicians) begin to recognize the power of the creative and motivated class of individuals, little can be done to properly utilize these peoples positions in the hierarchical partitioning of society.

[Thomas Jockin]

Michael and Shane,

First and foremost, I am much honored and pleased by your responses to my article. Time is the supreme commodity, so I truly appreciate you taking your time to share your feelings about my argument. PM exists to create conversations, so Mission Accomplished in my eyes :)

Michael,

Design most certainly actually get, pardon my bluntness, shit done when they live in reality and not in the blah, blah, blah that most work in "social good design" entails.

Simply put, its not built into the way design is taught and practiced today effectively. We're still taught and practice in the modernist model and that leave very little resources and incentives to really contribute in this sphere, because design's value incentives today is to add value to (aka sell) shit. End of story.

That's not how we're going to save or change the world. Thus why design's attempts to do so have been suboptimal— as David Stair's article concludes.

Shane,

Honestly, for the great majority of design students, they do not have this "…passion for design for a true learning experience". as you claim. For most students, design is just a *means* rather than an *ends*.

Design's just a way to pay the bills, doing something they "like" and do other things like travel, get smashed over the weekends, etc. etc.

In a context like this, it really that surprising that most designers work in places where,"Much of the process is predecated by the 'creative directors', engineers and marketing personel."?

What you put in, is what you get out.