A Thesis on Communication Design
[ 1 ]
The old, elite prejudice of the modern era – fear and loathing of the masses – is resurfacing today, albeit in new forms by the new elites.
[ 2 ]
The contemporary design elites in the academy, criticism and professional associations, have shown that they too fear the public. In response, the role of design (and that of the designer) and its relationship to the audience is being reconstituted.
[ 3 ]
The 60s counter-cultural, anti-consumerist world view preceded the contemporary rejection of the advances of mass society. In design terms, designs historic role – to give form to substance thus enlivening the message – is being subverted.
[ 4 ]
The design elite’s internalisation and propagation of broader external political and ideological forces, is in part an attempt to overcome their post-modern existential crisis.
[ 5 ]
The contemporary search for professional legitimacy and moral authority on the part of the design elite has resulted in a revision of the role of the designer and the role and function of design in society. Such an ideological volt-face is a refraction of the broader ideological thrust of corporations, business and the political class.
[ 6 ]
The design elite’s thematic, ideological impositions on contemporary design discourse (‘ethical design’, ‘the citizen designer’, ‘decolonising design’, ‘sustainable design’), is hostile to design’s audience – the public. It is, to the core, anti-design and anti-social.
[ 7 ]
This loss of faith in, and increasing hostility towards design’s audience is endemic in design criticism, the academy, professional associations and professional practice, through demands for design-led behaviour change – moral and social engineers rather than design engineers – that infantilises the public and in turn degrades design.
[ 8 ]
Design is a vital social and cultural intervention! The success of designers in the modern era has been grounded in design essentialism – that revelled in a unique, non-ideologically aligned position between author and audience – that was intuitively universalist in their outlook. To be truly ethical, designers understood that they had to be true to their craft, not bound and restricted by external political and ideological forces.
[ 9 ]
Design at its best is based on an unshakable belief in its audience as discerning and active subjects.
[ 10 ]
For designers to recover their independent status and act in the service of the public, they need to resist the calls of the design elite to act as social and moral engineers operating above and against their audience.
Alex Cameron (November 2022)
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Still Ill