Do Good Design Reading Summary

Main Points About Designing and Designers from Do Good Design:
- Just like Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility: We as designers have a responsibility to our public with what we create. We have to take responsibility for the consequences of our designs.
- Not just about the design anymore but, about the ethics around the message you produce. You as a designer have a responsibility for the public you design for.
- "Imagine: what if we didn't just do good design...we did good?" motto for design
- The messages we put out will affect the generations to come.
- "It takes a village to raise a child. I would say that it takes a society to raise a generation."
- Watch the claims you make as a Designer!
- Example: Drink Milk, Enjoy Life. Does that mean if you don't drink milk you in turn do not enjoy life? What the message you send to people.
-Think how people are going to interact with your design
- Example: 2000 Election with the poor designed ballot. What if Bush was not elected President? What would have taken place or not have taken place?
- We as a culture are plagued with overconsumption which is driven by bad media
- "It is unfortunate that the culture that was the most influential of the 20th century also happens to be the world's most environmentally unsustainable."
- Media is everywhere you look and you are constantly bombarded with messages to buy and consume.
- The brands from the U.S. market their products outside of the U.S. when the marketing fails to work here.
- In cultures where negative health effects of products are not as well known, the products are more heavily marketed.
- Brand loyalty is a very powerful idea, it can sway a consumer.
- "Designers are at the core of the most efficient, most destructive patter of deception in human history."
- Example: Nike swooshes on everything now. Coke logo on billboards in Africa where people buy Coca-Cola instead of anti-malaria pills.
-Branding is everywhere you look now.
- Presidential-election speeches then and now. Used to be in Memorial Coliseum now, in Pepsi Center and INVESCO Field.
-Places are now trying to counteract overmediazation of society.
- No billboards in Vermont and Sao Pablo
-" Be careful what you create." Not only are you responsible but, it can have dire consequences.
-"[R]ather then sharing our cycles of style, consumption and chemical addictions, designers can use their professional power, persuasive skills, and wisdom to help distribute ideas that the world really needs: health information, conflict resolution, tolerance, technology, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, human rights, democracy...as well as share the antidote for the buying and spending virus for which all have not yet built up resistance."
-Sexuality and women have been used in marketing for years.
- The old adage "Sex sells" still stands in today's marketing strategies.
- Is it our responsibility to change the world? The change starts locally and move globally. The best way to effect change is to start at home and move outward slowly with positive messages.