Ethical issues

This section looks at the increasingly contentious field of design ethics. From the birth of the discipline, designers have had to attempt to satisfy all the stakeholders in the design process. Greater self-awareness and external factors such as globalization have led to ethical issues increasingly impacting on design, manufacture, and consumption.

Design ethics

The design industry is continually evolving, responding to and shaping technology, society, and the economy. Designers help determine how people perceive a product, how they live, and what they wish to buy. Playing such an important role, designers have an immense responsibility to society. The green design responsibilities and universal design concerns discussed at length elsewhere within this chapter are part of a much broader system of moral values and obligations that face product designers today.

Consumers increasingly wish to buy products and services that are made ethically, without any exploitation of people, animals, or the environment. Consumers are now favouring ethical designs and looking for fair trade, cruelty-free, organic, recycled, reused, or locally produced products. Through such “positive buying,” consumers are forcing companies to alter their practices, actively supporting progressive companies while boycotting companies and brands that produce unethical products.

The rise in ethical consumerism and green brands that identify themselves as ethical has led to a rise in ethic-based decisions in the marketplace. Individual consumers and consumer groups are increasingly taking pride in uncovering information about business practices. Designers have responded to this growing awareness by adopting more ethical standards and practices.

Design is fundamentally a problem-solving process, and the world today has so many problems it is clear that designers need to initiate solutions rather than merely respond to them. Ethical design aims to contribute to the betterment of all and to ensure abundance, diversity, and health to future generations.

While many products are necessary and desirable, they all fulfill a role. This role may be as a prop for an experience, a tool to accomplish a specific task, or a loved heirloom. Given the environmental and social impact of mass production, designers are increasingly asking whether we need to automatically go through the default process of creating new products when another more sustainable, local, and humane manner of fulfilling that role may be possible. An example of the move away from tangible physical products and toward a new model of service design based on user experience is the growth of car-sharing clubs, with people asking themselves if they really need to own a car when they merely wish to use one.

War Bowl, by Dominic Wilcox, 2004. This is made by melting plastic toy soldiers to create a bowl that works beyond the level of mere function and texture, and which provocatively asks questions of its viewer.

World Trade Center, September 11, 2001, from Buildings of Disaster (1998—2009), designed by Constantin and Laurene Boym. In our mediasaturated time, world disasters stand as people’s measure of history, and the sites of tragic events often become involuntary tourist destinations. This project is a thoughtful response to our collective need for introspection, remembrance, and closure.

Design responsibilities

Product design has been a key driver for fueling consumerism and economic growth since the Industrial Revolution. Designers employed in industry are tasked with ensuring they produce profitable products and “good” design. Private profit-making, however, is often at odds with public good. Product designers have a dual responsibility, balancing the needs of their business, employers, and corporate clients on the one hand, while on the other acting as social advocates for the people who will purchase their products. To ensure a satisfactory balance is struck, you could ask yourself whether a design is useful, well made, and produced in a sustainable manner.

Designers can shape their careers through the clients and commissions they choose. Some designers have shifted their activities away from business and towards social activism and critique and self-generated projects—working at a small scale in order to have the latitude to explore new creative models and practices.

Designers have an ethical and professional responsibility to produce products that are safe to use. In the unfortunate situation that a product fails, consumers will often seek to prove legal liability. Product liability refers to the legal action by which an injured party seeks to recover damages from personal injury or property loss from the producer or seller of a product. In product liability law, the seller is liable for negligence in the manufacture or sale of any product that may reasonably be expected to be capable of inflicting substantial harm if it is defective.

Negligence in design is usually based on one of three factors:

• That the manufacturer’s design has created a concealed danger.
• That the manufacturer has failed to provide needed safety devices as part of the design of the product.
• That the design called for materials of inadequate strength or failed to comply with accepted standards.

In order to minimize the likelihood of producing a product that is unsafe for use, designers should always strictly adhere to industry and government standards, extensively test and modify designs to remove any potential causes of failure, and document all design, testing, and manufacturing quality activities. When preparing a design for market they must ensure that warning labels and instruction manuals are fully comprehensible and, above all, create a means of incorporating legal development and responsibilities into the design decision-making process.

Roadkill Rug, designed by Studio Oooms 2008. Simultaneously attracting and repulsing the viewer, on the one hand it’s a warm, soft, cuddly carpet, and on the other it’s a repulsive image of a car-flattened, bloody fox.

Flood Light, designed by Julie Mathias and Michael Cross of Wokmedia, 2006. Electric lightbulbs and coils of brightly coloured wire are plunged under water. The resultant design defies taboos about mixing electricity and water, encouraging the viewer to question their notions of safety by flirting with danger.

Gun Lamp, designed by Philippe Starck for Flos, 2005. Proposing that design is as much about storytelling as function Starck suggests that even adults need fairytales to dispel their fears, and that they perhaps need to play war to evoke a peaceful night’s sleep.

Beyond the profession

While there is strong agreement within the design industry about what constitutes professional behaviour toward clients and fellow designers, there is far less consensus about the obligations that designers have toward society as a whole, and their role in addressing the complex issues of today.

Creating products is a complicated process, and designers need to be aware of the larger contexts surrounding their work. In today’s global economy, even a simple product’s raw material may come from one part of the world, with manufacturing occurring on another continent, and final sales being carried out in another. This globalization can have a significant impact on local cultures and lead to economic imbalances that can impact adversely on environmental practices, human rights, and labour conditions, particularly in developing countries.

In order to address these issues, you will need to work alongside experts in many other disciplines, such as anthropologists, biologists, economists, politicians and sociologists, to name just a few. Design is a powerful tool for shaping the world and defining how we live in it, and as such you can bring creative skills and critical thinking to these collaborations.

Rat Wallpaper, by design collective Front, 2004. Here, traditional aesthetic sensibilities are challenged as rats gnaw through rolls of wallpaper to create repetitive patterns of holes that reveal the old wallpaper beneath the surface.

Cuckoo Clock, designed by Michael Sans, 2006.Taxidermy meets product.

Rat Wallpaper, by design collective Front, 2004. Here, traditional aesthetic sensibilities are challenged as rats gnaw through rolls of wallpaper to create repetitive patterns of holes that reveal the old wallpaper beneath the surface.