Three years ago when graduating from university, I wrote a personal plea to designers and communicators around the world. Although that plea was kept private, its convictions have stayed in my mind throughout every venture and decision, acting as my moral code.
I’ve decided to share this plea for all communicators around the world to hear, and hope that it guides them as it did me.
Visual Communicators: Innately Responsible?
What is your role as visual communicator in this world? Have you ever stopped to examine what our abilities entitle us to do, the significant influence it gives us over our viewer? Should we be responsible for how these abilities are used, and for the ideas they purport?
These key questions are far too often overlooked in our profession, and the moment you take a look at them, it is hard to turn away.
Living in a world where the complexity of information is growing exponentially, there are divisions being formed between those who are aware and those who are not. Critical awareness is the result of a shift in perspective that allows you to see the way a given issue operates. It provides the ability to participate in rational debate and empowers its host to stand up for what they actually comprehend, not just what they believe in. (Smart Bubble Society aims to raise this critical awareness in our audience).
Above almost all other areas of study – scientific, social and political issues are becoming some of the most misunderstood arenas of debate. As visual communicators, it is our tools that can help bridge this gap of awareness. We must recognize our innate responsibility to teach, simplify, and demystify these issues. The moment you commit to this understanding is the moment you admit that you are tasked with an extremely important role in this world.
But how do we shift our priorities? Currently, most of us lend our skills to convince our audience to buy things they do not need, or to educate them with information that has no true relevance to our global society. How have we come to this place of ethical ignorance? When tasked with design problems we must ask ourselves, is the message I am communicating morally acceptable? Is it truly relevant to society? Unfortunately it is all too often that these questions are not asked and our values are brushed aside in the name of furthering our careers.
Has this skill we posses, this tool to educate and inform become a communicative force, out of our control? Let’s be honest with ourselves. Our profession serves a ruling class. Just like ancient scribes in early human civilizations, we are used to facilitate an agenda that more often than not strays far from socially positive or progressive ideals.
Many years ago at York University, David Suzuki said, “Scientists have failed to demystify the climate crisis.” Well I wish to say to Dr. Suzuki: It is not the scientists who have failed, it is the communicators, the ones who wield the mediums that carry these messages.
Why is it that for so many years the scientific proof of human-induced climate change was so hard to find? Why was it stuck in textbooks and massive reports, far removed from the well-publicized and prevalent mediums of our times? The science behind our current understanding of the climate crisis has been around for thirty years, yet we as communicators have only recently begun to champion its cause. Where were our simplified charts, our information graphics and our visual metaphors?
We should be facilitating the understanding of these complex issues, and it should be morally mandated. Had we communicated better, would we now have a cleaner environment? Would fossil fuels still be our number one energy source? Could we have solved world hunger and created a planet that works together as a community, as it should?
What’s clear is that our skills allow us to deconstruct problems and find solutions. DECONSTRUCT problems in our world, in our society, and in our communities. Let us focus on our moral and ethical responsibilities to society, and help create a new era of critical awareness and understanding. Our services can no longer be the puppet of commercialization. We must rally under one absolute guideline: that what we communicate must offer something positive to society, and to the world.
comments rss3 thoughts "visual communicators: innately responsible?"
Posted by warren on September 10, 2009 at 2:17 am
yes, i agree with this 100%… all communicators, and visual ones as you specifically point out, should be responsible for bridging the awareness gap. i imagine there are often people who desire to be socially aware, but simply don’t have easy access to the right kind of information.
but youtube and thought bubble make it pretty easy.
i could see this thing becoming the next medium for all news on major social issues.
Posted by Larry on October 10, 2009 at 1:01 am
I completely agree with the wording of the argument, but fail to rally to the cause due to one misstep. I have found that, in my experience, morality is subjective. That is, it changes from person to person. I do not believe that people are simply more or less moral than one another, but that people can have very different morals. This is not as prevalent when dealing only with people from the same culture, as cultures are left functional by instilling morality as uniform as possible. However, when dealing with radically different cultures, or even the evolution of a single culture, it becomes very obvious.
Take peoples views on murder. Every culture I can think of, save a few ‘extreme’ pacifist cultures (this is as a comparison to other cultures, and is more a compliment to the virtue of said cultures rather than an insult), agree that murder is alright under certain conditions. Most of them would agree that self-defense is a reasonable condition. The protection of our own culture is another common one (in other words, a war on the defensive side is ok). Many people in the United States believe it’s ok to go to war and kill people just because those people are dangerous, even if they don’t necessarily pose an immediate threat. Many terrorists – from any culture – believe it’s ok to kill people if it will serve their cause. In the past European society agreed it was ok to kill and even torture people if they might have been witches. If we go back to biblical times, adultery was grounds for murder.
I don’t think any one of these examples lacked a strong grounds for their beliefs. I firmly believe that all of them had reasons they believed what they did, and that they were not simply less moral than our own culture. These people have convictions, some of varying strengths, but for the overwhelming majority people from each group had very strong convictions. Those convictions have more than an intensity, however, but also a direction. People have different morals.
In the case of the responsibility of the media, it is true that we must think more about what we are putting on the air. The problem is that we can’t leave judgement up to somebody’s morals. Even if we simply aim to have each television station focus solely on their morals, we would have stations around the world causing an uproar when the airwaves of somebody who is morally reprehensible to some broadcasting into the homes of families. It creates a very similar problem (though I must admit, one easier to control).
Posted by Mokokoma Mokhonoana on January 29, 2010 at 7:22 am
“…It is not the scientists who have failed, it is the communicators, the ones who wield the mediums that carry these messages.”
While I share the sentiment that our expertise as visual communicators can be used far efficiently than playing puppet to commercialization, I disagree with the extract I quoted above.
A designer’s responsibility is to use design to present content, an instruction or a message. The message is unfortunately dictated by what the client wants to communicate.
Therefore, blaming visual communicators would be nothing but crucifying the messenger.
your thought bubble: