Opinion: Stephen Judge asks, “What is the importance of ethics in design?”
By Stephen Judge
As designers we've all, at some point, felt a responsibility to wider society. Regardless of where we work, or our area of discipline, we take pride in our work and hope our designs are as functional as they are beautiful and have as limited a negative impact on both the people and world around us as possible.
A recent event organised by TEDxBedford sought to explore the theme of ‘by design’ and a number of talks focused on the ethical or day-to-day impact of design on our lives.
We heard from key figures in the design and business world such as Jonathan Sands OBE, Jeremy Lindley and Jean-Baptiste Danet, but we also heard from people like Arabel Lebrusan who is challenging the design of jewellery to reduce toxic waste and Jamie Bridge who is challenging the limited availability of a system designed to bring someone suffering an overdose literally back from the dead. By contrast Jeremy Lindley spoke of beauty in its natural and most artistic form not of the superficial.
At the end of the day, design is all around us. That’s hardly a revelation. However, how often do you really think about that? How often do you truly look at how something works and think it could be done better? And if so what does better mean?
Andy Middleton, founder and director of TYF Group and founding partner of The Do Lectures, believes that the answer for truly brilliant design is not in reinventing the wheel. His belief is that while humans have been designing things that enhance our lives for a few thousand years, nature has been working things out since the dawn of time. Middleton believes that if we want true inspiration for creating design for a better society, then we need not look any further than at what nature has designed already. A truly interesting and valid view when you look at the evidence around us in landfill and washing up along our seashores.
Sands, chairman of Elmwood, highlights the alarming fact that today the UK is ranked 152 in the league table of GDP growth. This means 151 countries are growing faster than the UK. The western world has lost its creative mojo. Not because we lack creative design talent, but because consumers and businesses increasingly see design as a subjective aesthetic and a quick way of making money.
However, design is still at the very foundation of everything we do. From Einstein to Zuckerberg, the people that change the world are creatives and designers at heart. So why, Sands asks, are we not teaching design and creativity in schools to younger children, when they’re at the height of their unrestricted creativity? Why do we not include creative thinkers on company boards, alongside the accountants, for some creative thinking to business problems, ncluding financial ones?
Echoing Sands’ thoughts, but taking them a little further, Dragon Rouge CEO, Danet, thinks the problem also lies with society and its growth. As we design better products, better systems, and better ways of living, businesses are in fact creating voids of creativity where only the strong growth areas attract creative thinkers to perpetuate further growth.
Danet also believes every business has a social responsibility to encourage better and, dare I say, beautiful business models, not just financial. Possibly a utopian view, but one that we, the team at Bonfire Creative Intelligence, share. While on one hand as a business, we can have our waste recycled and ensure we use materials from sustainable sources, on the other we can help support events like TEDxBedford to help carry and promote these important messages further.
Listening to the speakers at TEDxBedford, I was pleased to hear that I’m not alone in the views that whether it is for ethical, societal or business benefit, we as creative thinkers have our part to play in learning, educating and providing catalyst for change.
Stephen Judge is strategic development director at Bonfire Creative Intelligence
