In design we… trust? Hypocrisy or good intentions gone wrong.
Great design as a masquerade. Why good conscious design matters.
Recently a friend, and fantastic designer, Jason Gunkel showed me a video with a great message “Cultivate a better world.” This is a video that wants to teach us about how bad large corporations food we consume and ingest really is. It also shows us a little scarecrow that is sad and fed up with this type of food. He is so frustrated that he takes a trip to his farm, gathers some organic vegetables, and cooks a delicious meal (tacos/burritos). The promise is that everything was cultivated in a better way.
If you have not seen the video, which is a marketing material of Chipotle Restaurants, please do so. The message is direct, the graphic design is very polished and nicely crafted. It will make many people think about what food they consume. However, the fact that I know this message comes from Chipotle, a company that saw its growth thanks to many funds from McDonald’s Corporation is what makes me think about hypocrisy.
I remember the small Chipotle almost a decade ago. Their food was what they pitch, tasty, fresh and as close to Mexican style fast food as it can get in the USA. But over the past three years, the restaurants and their food have seen many changes, and in my experience, not for the good. Bad tasting food, farmer’s discontent, it now seems like a cross between Taco Bell and McDonald’s. This is the reason I consider this type of advertising a masquerade. Is this McDonald’s pretending to be a new fresh company, or is it really a good company that got funded by a corporate giant which is, in many eyes, one of the culprits of obesity and poor nutrition around the world?
As someone involved in creative direction, and as a designer, I do feel guilty when bad or deceptive products are coated with fantastic and ingenious design. If a designer is hired to produce fantastic ideas and designs for a product that uses the visuals as a deceptive practice, aren’t we guilty of the bad the corporation will inflict with their products/services?
What is our ethical level? Is it up to the designer to choose their creative assignments? I would believe so. What happens when creative, marketing and/or advertising agencies assign you the job because of your employment?
If their is a good citizenship moral and ethical manual, should we designers have our moral and ethical manual with us at the time of hire? Let’s do good, by choosing good clients, but what happens when there is a wolf under that nice client sheep coat, or should I say mask?
