Milton Glaser Ethical Considerations

Designers are known as producers of conversation and meaning. In the publishing industry, their job is to create visual messages through items like book covers and bookmarks that can start conversations and persuade or influence readers. With this in mind, do they take a completely objective and neutral stance on the messages the client wants them to create? Knowing that the work they produce has an influence on others, do they have social and ethical responsibilities for the work they create if it doesn’t align with their personal morals and values? As a designer in the publishing industry, an ongoing challenge is figuring out your role in each design process; whether you’re just an impartial messenger for your client or if you hold responsibility

However, as Milton Glaser (n.d.), one of the most celebrated graphic designers expressed, “most of us here today are in the transmission business. While we don’t often originate the content of what we transmit, we are an essential part of communicating ideas to a public that is affected by what we say [and present]” (para. 21). Book covers are an important part of the publishing process because it is likely everyone’s first impression of the book and one of the main deciding factors of whether or not they’ll purchase it. After all, as Jorge Frascara (1997), a recognized leader in visual communication design stated “the objective of all visual communication is to effect a change in the public’s knowledge, attitudes and behaviour (p.3). As a designer, connections are made and developed during the design process, and the work you create can affect a lot of people, and as a result, it comes with responsibilities to

In a blog post from Leap Design (2015) about design social responsibility they suggest that, “if client and designer do not communicate their needs effectively and are not mutually respectful, the resultant design is likely to be less successful” (2.3.2 Client section, para.1). Communication between the designer and client is very important in the design process. Since the client hired you based on your skills and expertise, you can discuss the parts of their request that you feel interferes with your ethics and work towards a mutually beneficial solution. As Leap Design (2015) describes it, seeing that “there are no definite rules and regulations as well as proposition that could answer how a designer should act and behave ethically,” (3.2.1. Understanding Ethics and Designers’ Social Responsibility section, para.3) it is mainly a matter of your own perceived social and ethical responsibilities that cause this to be a challenging circumstance. But in dire situations, Lucienne Roberts (2006), a graphic designer and a signatory of the First Things First 2000 manifesto, emphasizes that “if something were really such a serious matter for you ethically then even if it meant financial loss or other problems, [...] If it really is a moral make or break issue for you, you don’t do things that you don’t agree with.”