22nd
August
2006
The culpable designer
“When designers speak of ‘bad design’, they are generally referring to visual treatments which are displeasing, the haphazard output of a poorly trained designer, or at most, design solutions which simply do not work… If we accept that our general barometer for ‘bad’ is primarily superficial and personal in nature — as it is in the above examples — it leads us to consider that which truly is bad. I ask whether we should redefine bad design as: work that causes harm or helps support the efforts of clients who do damaging things.”