Thinking about ethics and responsibility in design I was interested in the comments Ian breifly made at the end of last Wednesday’s seminar about what the purpose of design is. It was interesting to note the distinction he made between profession and disicpline. Having looked up briefly about what distinguishes a profession from a vocation.
Wikipedia has this to say:
“A profession is a vocation founded upon specialised educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain”.
The article then goes on later to talk about professional bodies:
“Professions are typically regulated by statute, with the responsibilities of enforcement delegated to respective professional bodies, whose function is to define, promote, oversee, support and regulate the affairs of its members. These bodies are responsible for the licensure of professionals, and may additionally set examinations of competence and enforce adherence to an ethical code of practice. However, they all require that the individual hold at least a first professional degree before licensure.”
Would it be a good thing if design were to become a proper profession?
My feeling is yes. This does repeat some of the ideas with have discussed previously but I think the distinction between dicipline and profession is a key point. If design became a profession and therefore had a professional body, rather than a union, I think it would lend more credibility and respect to the industry, help to maintain or raise standards and for clients, create some accountability. It would also help us address ethical issues, disputes and give support to designers.
I’m not sure how you would go about this and whether it would work and it does raise other questions in turn but I think it is a more practical route to addressing some of the issues relating to the design industry as a whole than another manifesto.
Comments
I believe this outcome is ultimately where we are heading: A proposal for the foundation for a professional body, or possibly union (or both?). This body should aim to avoid the ambitious and idealist sentiment of a new manifesto that would be unenforceable. The First things First documents are clearly very contentious despite there supremely good intentions (I’m very sympathetic, but I doubt I’d sign it).
Of course a professional body will have certain aims and ambitions inherent in it so it will not be without its own controversy. Similarly a union will only be signed up-to by those who share its ethos. Not appealing to everyone though is not an argument for not doing it however.
I knew I’d read about this not long ago. A proposal has been put forward by the Chartered Society for Designers to the government to approve a CDes professional certificate.
I think this would probably be a useful step, not least because we would most likely qualify for the certificate once we have our MA. It’s a debate that is happening in web design too. I know from my experience in this area that jobs can often go to ‘my mates brother, he does a bit of web design’, at a reduced rate.. bu then I would say that maybe these jobs aren’t worth taking on in the first place, as the client obviously doesn’t place enough value on the work of the designer.
Apparently they will reach a decision within 3 months, so maybe it’s going to happen sooner than we anticipated.
A comment on the CR Blog:
“The majority of designers who’ll love this stupid idea will be awful designers.”
Maybe that last comment doesn’t encourage lively debate!
What kind of situations have you all come up against in your past experience that you think membership of a professional body would help with? We had a situation in a company where another company had plagiarised one of our designs, and used it for a website for bench, the clothing company. The advice we were given was to send a cease and desist letter, and hopefully that would be enough. It worked after a bit of pressure.
If the same thing happened today and an email/phone call failed to have any effect, i think raising a stink on twitter would be far more effective than any solicitor’s letter.