After AIGA Vancouver a friend called my article posted at HOWdesign.com a “voice crying in the wilderness,” adding, “The AIGA does have an agenda to push, …and is probably not interested in having base assumptions challenged.” He was trying to remind me that ours is a conservative profession. He was very right, and not just about the AIGA.
One of the people I met in Vancouver was a nice guy named Rob Peters, past president of ICOGRADA. I subsequently asked him why the bottom of the scale for institutional participation in the ICOGRADA Education Network (IEN) was so high? He said, “The fee for schools in countries with a GNP below $2500 is $100 annually. It costs ICOGRADA more than this to administer the school’s participation.” Now, I don’t know anything about the internal workings of ICOGRADA’s organization, but this felt overstated.
Frustrated by what I perceived as inflexibility in the face of a supposed effort to recruit new schools to the IEN, I contacted Armin Vit at UnderConsideration. I asked him if he would consider posting a “Challenge to ICOGRADA” (viewable here) in which I proposed that Designers Without Borders would sponsor any three schools in sub-Saharan Africa to the IEN if ICOGRADA would institute a one-time only registration fee for schools in countries with extremely low annual per capita incomes. Armin, himself a native of Mexico, said he tried not to take sides in political matters as it might appear to be an endorsement of one particular point of view.
Unfortunately, I was getting a picture, and it looked like this:
1) Across much of sub-Saharan Africa $100 is a small fortune. In a place where university students can’t afford books, the likelihood of giving a yearly fee to ICOGRADA is nearly nil. (It is not surprising that South Africa has the only IEN member schools in Africa. South Africa is the most industrialized/westernized nation in Africa.)
2) There’s a vast difference between living in the developing world and visiting it for a six-day conference or working vacation.
3) Westerners in general, and designers in particular, apparently could not see the distinction.
In the new Brenda Laurel book, Design Research, there’s an essay by Tracy Moon entitled “Living Proof.” It’s kind of out of place in this anthology since the gist of Moon’s piece is about the power of intuition in the face of information gathering, which is really the central theme of the book. So be it. As I read I found much of what she said acceptable enough until I came to, “At the core of my belief system about how creativity happens is a veritable dearth of beliefs. In fact, I could argue that my only real belief is not to have beliefs.” Apparently, Ms. Moon thinks ideology, as opposed to esthetics, has no place in design, and in fact leads to “narrow mindedness.” This is what I call the objectivist fallacy, the idea that we can stand outside of or beside the world and cooly observe it. Skeptic and traditional unbeliever though I am, I couldn’t disagree more. It doesn’t really work even in science, so why should one consider detachment efficacious in design? Personally, I no longer try to even conceive of design devoid of beliefs. Most human behavior is value-laden. Money-making is political. Eating is ritualistic. It’s na�ve to fain objectivity where human behavior is concerned.
I remember how, in Emigre 49, Rudy VanderLans famously stated, “…this is the final issue of Emigre in which we report and reflect on the state of graphic design. The heated debates of the 80s and 90s seem to have run their course…there are no significant debates happening in graphic design today.” Tired of mediating the fray he said Emigre would return to its roots, concentrating primarily on typography. He did add the hope that a new generation of designers would “fill the void.” Ironically, #49 was the same issue of Emigre that carried the revived First things First Manifesto, a kettle of “significant debates” if ever there was one. So the discussion of values did not really end.
And a new generation has picked up Rudy VanderLans’ gauntlet, especially online. At sites like Speak Up and the AIGA Forum’s Cross Cultural community of interest there is a great deal of talk, especially about design globalization. But is all this hubbub over cross-cultural design anything more than talk? Granted, my definition of cross-cultural design is not the only, or even the best one. But it is grounded in the knowledge that cultural exchanges need to be more than conference panels and cheerleading for design internationalism. What is the reality in developing nations? Can American designers recalibrate their bullshit-meters long enough to sift through the media-speak and catch the real drift? Would they be willing to sacrifice the entry cost of the AIGA 365 annual to help sponsor scholarships for design students overseas? The price of one-month’s cell phone service to assist a foreign design school? Would they donate the cost of a magazine subscription to a design non-profit? The price of a cup of coffee? A subway token? Anything?
These days, when the chips are down, I look around the table to see who most enjoys the sound of the words “cultural exchange” as they roll off the tongue, then I walk straight up to them and ask, “What are you doing about it?” If they give me an excuse, whether slick or mealy-mouthed, my bullshit-meter goes bonkers and I automatically relegate them to the cross-cultural cross-dresser category. I know it’s unfair; loses me a lot of potential friends, too. Nobody likes a moralizing, self-righteous boor, especially one from Kampala.
In closing Armin said to me, “Design politics are tough.” Again, I respectfully disagree. It isn’t design politics we’re talking about here, just good old Human Nature. If you are reading this now, it is probably because Armin remembered his site is named Speak Up, not Clam Up, and that what I’m saying could in no large way harm his relations with anyone in the design profession. We’re all in this world together, for better or worse. How much better it will be when we manage to include the disenfranchised is the challenge. Meanwhile, assume nothing!
David Stairs has not accomplished much in his long life, but he hopes to change that one-day. Since 1994 he has anchored the program in communication design at Central Michigan University where he mentors an AIGA student chapter. In 2000 he founded Designers Without Borders in Kampala. He is currently at work on a book about contemporary African vernacular design. Forthcoming articles by and about him are scheduled for the June issue of HOW and the autumn issue of Design Issues. Designers Without Borders is planning expanded field operations in Africa from 2006-2007. For more information go to www.designerswithoutborders.org.
David, I really appreciate getting the change to hear your voice. I've caught snippets of designerswithoutborders here and there, and now have a better understanding of what you're all about.
Issues of globalization and design are just now reaching us. It's sickening. Whether we're talking about outsourcing jobs to small countries or pounding out million year old cultures in underdeveloped regions, something has to be done. Right? Designers of late, are looking to be crusaders. If the 90s was about authorship, the 00s will be all about advocacy.
It seems unmanageable to start off with big visions like visiting Africa or Iraq, so I advocate working in your immediate area first. Learn about at risk youth and develop a design program to keep them busy after school. Develop a campaign that educates African-Americans about AIDS because they're most afflicted by this trauma. Or why not spend time doing a PowerPoint presentation at your local high school that shows students how they can use design to voice their own opinions and issues, cultural or otherwise.
There's plenty designers can do for "cultural exchange." Something's better than nothing. Let's look at our own environment before crossing an ocean.
On Mar.18.2004 at 06:12 PM