An odd change has taken place in design in the last decade. Despite the greater public interest in design, and the awkward but enthusiastic embracing of creativity by New Labour, the design world has tended to lose interest in design. Instead, its interest has gravitated to political, social and economic debates that loosely touch on design. The phenomenon is most prominent in North America, but as ever the UK is never far behind its trans-Atlantic mentors.

Of course, an interest in politics is nothing new among designers. Just witness the work of Ken Garland, Robin Fior, David King and, more recently, Lucienne Roberts, displayed in the Barbican Art Gallery’s recent Communicate show. Or the myriad examples documented in Liz McQuiston’s Graphic Agitation books.

But there is a difference with today’s agitators. Garland et al were working as designers for a client, albeit CND or the Anti-Apartheid Movement. They were no doubt in agreement with the causes for which they worked, but they were simply re-directing their fabulous communication skills to the needs of agenda-setting clients. Today designers are instead trying to set the agenda, to weave ethics into every aspect of their activity and organisations, and to epitomise their beliefs.

At the D&AD SuperHumanism conference in 2001 Neville Brody proudly claimed of his company that “we won’t work for petrol companies, cigarette companies, or drinks companies”[i]. Jonathan Barnbrook creates self-commissioned pieces such as ‘The Corporate Vermin that Rules America’[ii], so that “people could perhaps see other motives for how policy decisions were made”. Canadian designer David Berman lectures students at LCC and beyond on ‘Weapons of Mass Deception: Graphic Design and Social Responsibility’, and implores of them “don’t just do good design, do good!”[iii]. And the resuscitation of the First Things First manifesto, signed by thirty-three of the design great and good, dominated design thinking in the early noughties[iv].

Many design commentators have shaped or embraced the new mood. Andrew Howard argues that our objective should be “the politicisation of design”[v], while Tim Rich poses the challenge: “If we really care about the power of design, shouldn’t we care more about who we do it for?”[vi]. In the US, Allworth publishes Citizen Designer[vii], edited by Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne, in which some of ‘today’s most articulate designers’ consider ‘How can a designer effect social or political change?’ and ‘At what point must a designer take a stand?’

Design publications and bodies have become political agenda setters more than forums for learning and debate. New York based Metropolis magazine organises symposia on ‘Teaching Green: Making Sustainability Integral to Every Designers’[viii], and publishes the ‘Sustainable Metropolis’ resource, which touts “ideas that will make our world healthier and more just”[ix]. Near neighbour I.D. magazine runs cover stories on ‘The 40 Most Socially Conscious Designers’[x].

The SuperHumanism conference was symptomatic of the evacuation of traditional design discussion by leading design organisations. The same can be seen in the US, where the last two national AIGA conferences, ‘Voice’ and ‘The Power of Design’, focused on social and environmental issues, the latter event advocating roles for designers as ‘agents of social change in a complex world and as leading architects of sustainable solutions for a troubled planet’. In the UK the established design organisations facilitate almost no discussion around what were once core design issues.

Even design colleges aren’t isolated from this trend. Some have uncritically adopted this politicised outlook, and encourage student to pursue a rather disengaged critical practice. Others do less than they might to challenge students’ ideas and to instill intellectual independence.

There is a positive kernel to designers’ desire to engage more with the world, and to play a bigger role. This can be seen in the parallel developments in which designers are pushing for a more central role in business and in the development and design of social policy solutions.

However, today’s graphic activism is characterised by ill-informed, sanctimonious, grand-standing – verging on righteous anger. It is less about understanding the world and engaging in real debate, more about having one’s views endorsed by like-minded colleagues. Less about effecting change, more about showing one’s moral virtue through action or abstinence. Less about showing leadership and being held to account, more about being holier-than-thou.

If our graphic activists are really so worldly, we might ask why don’t they read more and engage in public debates. (And No, reading No Logo and listening to Naomi Klein at the ICA don’t count.) We might also ask why they don’t write and speak more on the issues about which the feel so strongly. If the design profession has achieved such profound insights about the world, shouldn’t we expect there to be more design theorists within its ranks? The truth is that most theory and insight is delivered by non-designers, from Naomi Klein to John Thackara, and Ralph Caplan to Rick Poynor.

The other side of politics and social changes involves making a difference, through analysis, strategy, tactics, and argument. Wanting to change the world for the better – an entirely laudable sentiment – usually implies having some concept of how the world works, why it isn’t working in some respect, and a strategy for change. Today’s activists seem to be largely uninterested in debate around these themes, or in activity of almost any kind – unless it gets media attention. Real activism, however, require a lot of hard work, and the rewards are hard won.

Instead of analysis and strategy we are fed sophisticated conspiracy theories about how society is run. We are told by Adbusters magazine – the house journal of graphic activism – that: “We seek nothing less than the total grassroots takeover of corporate capitalism”[xi]. Such grand but empty statements make Tony Blair’s politics look profound. This July 4 Adbusters organised parades declaring ‘independence from oil’[xii], in what has to be the first political movement against a mineral.

As to tactics, we have to infer that change will come about through the actions of individuals and by promoting visual propaganda. I may have missed the historical examples, but it is hard to think of any significant change that came about from the actions of individuals who had no collective self-interest. In the case of visual propaganda, it only represents but doesn’t create change. As design and architecture commentator Hugh Aldersey-Williams has acutely observed of graphic agitation, in most cases “the images come along as change is underway or even after it has happened”[xiii].

Above all, the ability of our modern graphic activists to present arguments that take for granted still contentious ideas, abuse statistics, infer logical connections, substitute anger for cool consideration, and arrive at dubious conclusions demonstrates a disregard for the intelligence of their audiences, and a contempt for the rhetorical skills and rational models of debate that have served design, and society, so well to date.

It is not just their audience about which graphic activists are equivocal. For all their socially enlightened rhetoric, the graphic activists’ view of the people they are out to save is that they are either clueless victims, or selfish perpetrators of crimes against society – and as such are beyond the pale.

In spring this year Adbusters announced “the year’s biggest cleanup of our mental environment” when it claimed that “10,000 jammers armed with TV-B-Gones will fan out in malls, classrooms, airports and bars around the world turning off TVs and reclaiming public space”. Here we see the enlightened saving the ‘victims’ of contemporary capitalist culture.

But what is most remarkable is that for all their cant about the evils of contemporary mass culture, contemporary activists have no significant culture to present ordinary people as an engaging alternative to that which is currently on offer.

The question of enlightenment is also important. Why is it that designers more than any other profession consider they have a duty to express their ethical and social views through their practice? In fact, if one were to look inside their practices one might be surprised at the lack of ethics on show. Typical of these practices is low pay (‘design is a vocation, not a profession’ we are told) and no profit-share; required and unpaid overtime, with no notice; little training, personnel function, or career development; and poor or vindictive management, from designers-turned-managers who often have no training themselves. Perhaps ethics, like charity, should begin at home.

Reflecting more broadly on our graphic activist friends, one might note their lack of humour or, as I have intimated, any great love for humanity. The world may be going to hell in a handcart, but if you can only see this as tragedy you can’t have real empathy with the rest of us.

Someone who can’t be accused of lacking humanity is Ken Garland. His humanism and openness shine through his work and his behaviour. From mentoring scores of young designers to his annual trips to Mexico to teach design students. From his wide reading and interests to his interest in engaging in discussion and debate.

This humanism in design has a long history. From William Morris’s desire to create lodgings for ordinary people that would “soothe and elevate them”, to Lucienne Day’s reflection on the Festival of Britain that “we wanted to design for everybody, not for the elite”[xiv] designers have aspired to make, and have made, a real difference to the quality of people’s lives.

Perversely, the graphic activists’ focus on extra-design issues at the expense of engaging with new design challenges, their view of their audiences as victims or perpetrators, and their distrust of commercial clients, leads to uninspired design work and a failure to innovate.

The hostility to large organisations, including corporate design agencies, among graphic activists, but also more broadly, has helped undermine their appeal as both clients and employers. Yet these organisations are one of the most effective routes for delivering good design that can really improve life for ordinary people.

I have to conclude that graphic activism represents bad politics that short-changes designers and undermines good design.

It would be desirable for designers, and graphic activists, to engage in politics. (They would find it a lot more interesting than what is on offer from the graphic activists.) It would be wonderful if they were to be still more worldly, engage in open debate in more forums, and try to better understand the world. This would also benefit their design work, helping them more keenly understand the context of their projects, and the markets and people for who they are designing.

In their working hours I hope that designers will focus on being good designers. And when they are free from work they can also make a positive difference in the world of real politics.

[i] Neville Brody at SuperHumanism: “There is no clear line on this. But we won’t work for petrol companies, cigarette companies, drinks companies.”

[ii] 2003 http://www.barnbrook.net/political/tt/g/ttg-11.html

[iii] London College of Printing, February 20, 2004

[iv] See commentary in ‘First Things First 2000’ (Eye, Autumn 1999) http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature.php?id=18&fid=99

[v] ‘Design beyond commodification’ Andrew Howard, Eye, issue 38, Winter 2000 http://www.eyemagazine.com/opinion.php?id=3&oid=13

[vi] ‘Time to mind your ethics’ Tim Rich 01 November 2001. “If we really care about the power of design, shouldn’t we care more about who we do it for?” http://www.mad.co.uk/dw/stories/2001/11/01/0049.asp [paid sub required]

[vii] ‘Citizen Designer’ Edited by Steven Heller and Véronique Vienne (Allworth, 2003) http://www.allworth.com/Catalog/DW282.htm

[viii] Conference at the 2002 ICFF ‘Teaching Green: Making Sustainability Integral to Every Designers' Education and Business’ May 20, 2002 (New York City)

[ix] http://www.metropolismag.com/html/sustainable/

[x] January/February 2001 ‘The 40 Most Socially Conscious Designers’ http://www.idonline.com/backissues.asp

[xi] Adbusters, Communique 11: We’ve Built a Movement, 19 Dec 2004

[xii] In San Francisco and New York, jammers are organizing parades declaring independence from oil. Adbusters, Communique 18: The July 4th Tipping Point

[xiii] ‘When designers come over all altruistic’ Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Graphics International (UK), March 2002 http://www.hughalderseywilliams.com/journalism/altruistic.htm

[xiv] The Reunion: 'Festival of Britain', BBC Radio 4, 24 August 2003 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/reunion/reunion5.shtml