Designers stand up.
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- gradiate
Hello All. We over at Design Assembly have been getting fed up with the pasting design gets in the press and from politicians repeatedly. The often badly researched articles where we get panned for no apparent reason, other than it is easy, got us annoyed so we decided to make a bit of a stand. Read the open letter over on the blog and please spread via blogs and Twitter. The MP in question who slates us in the article we reference is a former banker so it is pretty rich him complaining about the small costs involved in the grand schemes of things.
http://www.designassembly.org/20…
Let us know your thoughts. If you have trouble getting on the site please be patient. There's be a massive number of hits today so far already.
- gradiate0
There's been a number of articles from the 2012 branding to BBC idents. Whenever a public funded design comes out the "I could have done that" brigade get all over the often justified costs.
- PonyBoy0
Dry your tears and wake up to the fact that you make shit look 'pretty' and that most folks really don't give a fuck in the end... then you'll find true happiness. :)
I've worked on my share of fortune 500 bullshit to really tricky boutique-ish horse-shit... NOBODY gives a fuck but you and like-minded losers...
... grow up and stop wasting so much time on useless articles that only 'designers' give a fuck about.
- +1pillhead
- Thanks for the support. Maybe you don't but I take pride in my work and am justified to be annoyed about being singled out for wasting cash when it is unjustified. l.gradiate
- I love what I do... but I'm not arrogant enough to say I 'take pride' in it... I realize in the end that I create 'floral arrangements.'PonyBoy
- arrangements'PonyBoy
- taking pride in something you do is arrogance?Josev
- there are two types of designer, those who decorate, and those who actually use design to improve things...foz
- airey0
have you read the article that you're railing against? she's more making a point of public money spending, we'll to me it seems that way. it certainly doesn't belittle our industry wholesale by any measurement. she makes some good points.
the issue there isn't the design or our industry but the specific groups that suckle on the teat of public money. you want to get angry, get angry at these mercenary cunts for reducing our industry's public perception.
still, i'm probably wrong. usually am.
- kelpie0
aye but for fuck's sake - this is the real issue right here:
"The Tory MP Greg Hands said: “Surely adding two digits doesn’t need to be outsourced at all. Civil servants can do this themselves. Modern graphic design packages surely allow anyone with an average brain to design something as good as, or better than, what we see in front of us here.” "
- mydo0
well i'm glad people get passionate about stuff. i've not got much of an opinion on this one.
after the anger you got you probably don't want any comments on your site, but it's made me passionately angry enough to give it a pasting.....
Your hyperlinks are not underlined or indicated by colour. But you do have underlined words that are not hyperlinks. With the exception of links that are underlined and are links. For a design assembly you should have less click here.
- lowimpakt0
one of the problems is that designers have been trained to focus on outputs (logos, products, posters etc) and they only communicate the value of design as such. - which is why most people only think of design in thjose terms.
designers need to be better at communicating the strategic value of design thinking as a process. They need to be better at explaining the value of design in driving innovation, business development and creating economic value.
blah be blah blah
- kelpie0
The real thing here that the writer is railing against (if you ignore his ignorance about A. costs for a design agency and B. the process and value of good design), is that government departments are using public money to attempt to paper over fundamental cracks with swish branding, rather than using the money to address the actual problems.
This isn't a pasting of design unless you're getting huffy about the aforementioned ignorance, which is poorly veiled but to be expected and in reality aimed at the commissioners of the work, not the producers.
He's quite right that a failing government department shouldn't be trying to use branding-voodoo to give people the impression they are digging their way out of a hole rather than sinking further into it.
- +1FallowDeer
- They should questions the comissioning and not the design then!gradiate
- PonyBoy0
i'm too drunk for a second post... long live Sunday, you whores.
- lowimpakt0
kelpie - that is the same as most private sector clients too.
very few designers ask WHY they have been approached by a client for a new branding/logo etc.
Quite often it's because the business is in trouble and they need a get out of jail card. pasting over cracks.
I think government should invest more in design, even if some of it may seem frivolous e.g. logos.
less money on nuclear weapons, more on design.
- kelpie0
private sector clients are spending their own money. I'm all for better Design thinking and production all through society, but this isn't it - bit busy today to go into detail but put it this way: I'd much rather the street signage system was overhauled by a good, intelligent design agency than my council had a great new brand and thousands of posters up saying how well they were doing. That's design that fundamentally helps people day to day. To me a lot of this is branding snake oil which is very useful to drive sales (essentially) in a consumer market, but strikes me as akin to spin when applied to publicly funded civil service departments.
- lowimpakt0
kelpie,i agree. this branding thing is a bit narrow.
i'm making the case for more design investment by government and that we should be distracted every time a mongo reporter has a go at a poorly procured job.
- monospaced0
gradiate
I'm glad you're doing something that you believe in. Standing up for our profession and reputation as an industry is a good thing.
I just wish your letter had been proofread better. The second paragraph ends with an unnecessary question mark and there are questionable areas throughout. It might be taken more seriously had it been written better.
- JazX0
Now sit back down, a suit is on his way over.
- previous0
is that the royal "we"?
- dan53820
I stood up when I read the headline.... Got told to sit the fuck down. So much for standing.
- cannonball19780
"Dry your tears and wake up to the fact that you make shit look 'pretty' and that most folks really don't give a fuck in the end... then you'll find true happiness. :)"
Maybe if that's the role you found yourself in. Some other designers solve problems.
- eating_tv0
Props to Matt!
Matt Isherwood wrote:
Might it have made sense to contact the designers themselves here for comment? You know, for balance. You mention plenty of agency names here. I'm sure they'd be able to tell you how the costs break down (probably something like the commenters below have mentioned). Not enough time?But then you did have time to ask for an MP's highly informed opinion:
The Tory MP Greg Hands said: “Surely adding two digits doesn’t need to be outsourced at all. Civil servants can do this themselves. Modern graphic design packages surely allow anyone with an average brain to design something as good as, or better than, what we see in front of us here.”
Yeah, that's real insight.
- duckofrubber0
And yet, I sit.