Going to write my report on something related to or stemming from the topic "ethical design", which is massive, so I think I may focus in on designers and projects like Milton Glaser (who refers to himself as a citizen designer)...
On the other end I might maybe conduct research into whether it is viable for designers to have a strong "ethical" or civic leaning in commercial design industries, investigate if there are any well known pro bono or civic projects that benefited greatly from a kind generous designers input... This actually sounds more interesting than the previous paragraph, as I type it.
- Pearse
The idea of a balance between commercial and pro bono design work is an interesting one Pearse. You could speak to a company Zerofee - who have coined the term 'donated design' and do a proportion of free design work but even their commercial work is done mainly for public/third sector organisations.
ReplyDeleteMany design companies say that they charge less for work for public/third sector clients - perhaps you could conduct an investigation into whether this is really true? It would be difficult to get real figures out of design companies but maybe there is something in that idea that might be worth pursuing?
Alternatively you could look at how a large charity like Oxfam commissions design from the design companies on their books. They also have a large in-house design dept so it could be a good case study? Do they deliberately play the charity card to get better rates? Looking at it from both perspectives could be interesting.