By Ultra7 (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons
There’s this scene in How to Make It in America where Lake Bell’s character (Interior Designer) meets her college roommate, who is on her way to Africa for PeaceCorps. As a designer, someone in the commercial arts, it’s hard for me to feel like I am effecting social change by making expensive chandeliers. I’m tired of feeling like the best thing I can do for the world is to make this ________(noun) more ___________(adjective) so more people will be more apt to use it. How can I justify my work to a world of friends who are hell bent on making the world a better place?
Perhaps the best things we as designers can do for good is to put people to work. Designers make things. But don’t focus just on the object that comes in the box. Designers make jobs. We design cars and car factories make communities. People buy our things and we find people to make them. Graphic designers make books. People print books. Interior designers make, um, interiors. People build those. It is this creaTION process, not the creaTIVE process, which gives us so much power.
Take a look at the work of Thrive.
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