political
Visiting the Dutch Design Week confirmed an obvious fact: most of the creators exhibiting share a common political viewpoint. They openly state this or create artefacts that clearly express it. If you agree with the viewpoint or opinion presented, then you receive tremendous uplift and confirmation. It’s like entering a convention of beekeepers, and all you hear are bees buzzing. Some call this an echo chamber.
The political viewpoint is exceptionally relevant to those exhibiting, and that, because of this, the exhibited artefacts carry designs that follow suit. However, that doesn’t mean these designs are well-executed, nor that the outcomes are particularly valuable. They are mainly statements. An object’s design always reflects the purpose and the craftsmanship that went into it. Like a coin, design outcomes have two sides: one is the consideration that went into them, the other is the value they evoke.
The process of designing an artifact is a cultural technique, like writing, acting, or singing. We can mold our world to take on the form the designer has in mind. Hence, we have multiple expressions of “facts” around us that have been given form by cultural conventions and are vested in the designer or the user to whom they are addressed. The act of designing itself remains a technique; it’s the designer, the author, or composer who defines the course of action to alter it. Design itself is a means to an end.
Increasingly, we are confronted with statements that alter this notion. Design is no longer a cultural technique we use to create desired outcomes; it is now considered a political statement. “Design is political” is a statement made at the DDW, underpinning that the act of design is a political act and must yield a corresponding outcome. Not just any outcome in line with an overarching design principle, but one in line with a distinct political vision or program. In my observation, design is increasingly used to express a political standpoint rather than a neutral technique. Liberal worldviews are dominating the designer community; therefore, woke is in demand.
An interesting study by a designer in Cologne, Germany, found that designers’ moral footprint is remarkably homogeneous. He used Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Taste Test among students of the KISD – Cologne’s International School of Design. A whopping 90% of the 60 students participating fell in the same moral category: liberal. Not a surprise, but still. He also tried to inquire about the footprint of business students, but received no reply, which also says a lot.
Are designers promoting their worldview by using design as a means? Most likely. One could argue that there’s nothing wrong with that. That a liberal or woke worldview is preferred anyhow, and that design is an expression of betterment, progress, and innovation. But that’s not the issue. Imagine it’s the other way around.
As soon as ideologies or world views dictate the techniques we use, beyond influencing outcomes, these techniques become totalitarian tools. Then cultural techniques become expressions of totalitarian cultures that allow only what aligns with the dominant viewpoint, for good or bad. A bit like commanding that scissors can only cut blue paper, or musicians can only play Bach. But then, related to more crucial life-defining issues.
Despite the good intentions of the involved designers to highlight issues that they reject or want to improve, subsuming design as a function or technique under the desired outcomes related to a worldview or political disposition is counterproductive. I have come across people who express doubt about engaging with “design” because they fear not being supported but instead being lectured. Designers, who deliberately associate liberal or woke worldviews with design, act as absolutists, or like musicians who will only play Bach! In essence, they undermine their own principle of diversity by excluding all political views from the design realm, except for their own.
Those who seek to improve their organization, services, products, and outcomes are left with the notion that design is only for those who are worthy of it. That design is an elitist undertaking, yielding “political” outcomes of one particular (moral) taste. That design itself is political.
I think that’s not what design is supposed to be. It’s intended to improve the course of action. Whatever the course may be. The world is full of great music, intended for various purposes and tastes. The same should count for design. Policies can be designed, but design is not a policy! Designers can have political views, but they aren’t politicians; they are professionals.