A Designers Duty: A New Era of Cultural Appreciation in Design
Honouring Cultural Integrity Before Economic Prosperity.
Article for Design Culture and Theory, BDES 1201. Week 5: February 11th, 2021. Total word count: 557
In Earnest Calkins's article “What Consumer Engineering Really Is”, he describes how the stock market crash of 1929 devastated the economy and forced professionals to get creative, in order to increase sales and rebound the economy. With this economic crash came the practice of consumer engineering, which Calkins describes as “shaping a product to fit more exactly consumers’ needs, or tastes, but…includes any plan which stimulates the consumption of goods” (Calkins 129). He goes on to explain that planned obsolescence, and when lucky natural obsoletism, are tools used by consumer engineers to stimulate the economy. Calkins believes that economic prosperity lies in spending, and “any plan which increases the consumption of goods is justifiable if we believe that prosperity is a desirable thing” (Calkins 130).
On the contrary, Katherine McCoy’s article “A Cold Eye: When Designers Create Culture”, provides context to the devastating effects that designer’s beliefs, such as Earnest Calkins, could have on interpretive communities and indigenous cultures. McCoy places cultural sustainability far ahead of stimulating the economy, stating that “we need strategies for culturally sustainable design that can honour existing cultures…” (McCoy 182). She strongly believes that as designers, we contribute heavily to the creation of mass media, and in turn, we are complacent in the creation of hegemony of global consumer monoculture (McCoy 26). In order to combat this problem, McCoy suggests 3 alternative approaches for the design community. Firstly, she proposes that everyone is a designer; and that designers should stop practicing. Secondly, McCoy states that designers should employ cultural languages. And lastly, that audience-centred design strategies should inform the design process (McCoy 183).
It would be difficult to draw any comparisons between these two writings as it is clear Calkins and McCoy have two drastically different beliefs on the role of designers in our society. Calkins believes strongly that designers are always able to “engineer an adequate supply of customers” (Calkins 132). He believes that consumer engineering is a necessary tool in order to sustain our economy, regardless of the environmental or cultural implications that this could bring. In contrast, McCoy believes that this capitalistic approach is destroying local character and indigenous traditions, in an effort to force a new international culture through mass media. McCoy recognizes that “designers create culture — for better or worse” (McCoy 183), and that we often impose foreign “high culture” on unsuspecting and unwilling audiences. Each author recognizes the power which designers hold over consumers, yet each has completely different views on how we are to use this power.
I strongly agree with McCoy in her belief that we as designers have an important responsibility to maintain the cultural integrity of interpretive communities outside our own. No amount of economic growth is worth the forced cultural assimilation that designers like Calkins are unwittingly proposing. Jackson Triggs's recent commercial, “Our World Needs Change”, is a perfect example of a corporation honouring the diverse cultural needs of their consumer base. This commercial is a positive step in cultural integration, as opposed to the forced cultural assimilation which we traditionally see in mass media.
Do you believe there is a way to genuinely honour different cultures without appropriating their traditions and beliefs in the interest of monetary gain? How can we as designers consider these communities when designing products, entertainment and media, which will inevitably affect their culture?