Do Good Design: How Design Can Change Our World

Audio

Listen to an interview with David Berman.

FOREWORD BY ERIK  SPIEKERMANN

How did design help choose a president?
Why are people buying houses they cannot afford?
Why do U.S. car makers now struggle to compete? Why do we really have an environmental crisis?
Design matters. Like never before.

Disarming the weapons of mass deception.
Designers create so much of what we see, what we use, and what we experience. In this time of unprecedented environmental, social, and economic crises, designers can choose what their young profession will be about: inventing deceptions that encourage more consumption—or helping repair the world.

Do Good Design is a call to action:
It alerts designers to the role they play in persuading global audiences to fulfill invented needs. The book outlines a more sustainable approach to both the practice and the consumption of design. All professionals will be inspired by the message of how one industry can feel better about itself by holding onto its principles. In this provocative and dramatically-illustrated book, David Berman offers a powerful and hopeful message for all designers.

Today, everyone is a designer.
And the future of civilization is our common design project.

Do Good Design is an AIGA Design Press book, published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA. The author will make a donation of 10% of his proceeds to a not for-profit organization whose mission is in alignment with the goals of this book.

Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful Are We All Responsible?, September 8, 2009 By  Ellen M. Shapiro (Irvington, New York, USA) - See all my reviews    This review is from: Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World (Paperback) You might expect a book with "good design" in its title to showcase elegant communications pieces for savvy clients. Not this book. On the cover, the word "design" is crossed out. "Do good" is the message. But first, Canadian designer David Berman shows us bad design. Really bad -- and not in the aesthetic sense of the word. He bombards us with offensive, sexist print ads for cigarettes, cars, fast food, beer. According to Berman, the multinational conglomerates selling these products are an axis of evil far more dangerous than Al Qaeda, creating an addiction to mass consumption that is leading to the demise of the planet's environment. He also bombards us with words: exploitation, deceit, junk, greed. "Designers are at the core of the most efficient, most destructive pattern of deception in human history," he writes. Is it fair to blame designers for these evils? Should graphic designers, who generally work in small firms, be lumped together with the global ad... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful Disarming the weapons of mass deception..., March 18, 2009 By  Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews             This review is from: Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World (Paperback) Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) One of the books I received from Amazon Vine last month was Do Good Design: How Design Can Change Our World by David B. Berman. Actually, it was a book I heard about from a few other bloggers who I respect, so getting the opportunity to pick it up for review was perfect. Overall, I thought his premise was interesting and thought-provoking... Designers have an obligation to "do good" when it comes to crafting messages, and that our current mindset of mass consumption is not sustainable in the long run. He shows plenty of examples to back up his views, and you can't help but consider how much "mass deception" we've succumbed to. But to buy into his message completely, you have to think that most everyone out there is bent on seducing you in ways you haven't imagined. And I personally don't think that everything is a conspiracy theory... Contents: The Creative Brief - Disarming the Weapons of Mass Deception: Start Now; Beyond Green - A Convenient Lie; Pop Landscape;... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful Design does matter, March 20, 2009 By  Michael McKee "mystic cowboy" (Port Townsend, WA United States) - See all my reviews          This review is from: Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World (Paperback) Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?) When I first started reading this I was a bit cynical. Yeah, much of graphic design deliberately skews its message to influence the viewer. As a designer myself I pretty much take this as part of the game. Whether selling a product or person the idea behind design is to influence behavior. As I got into the book however, I realized that I am not as jaded as I thought. Yes influence is important but so are clarity, honesty and appropriateness. I recently looked at a cover of Psychology Today and am pretty put off by the blatant sexual overtones that the magazine regularly uses. Do Good Design covers that subject and raises the question of how tying a product to the implication of sex with an attractive partner plays out in the long term. Will buying that beer or soft drink get you the supermodel? Obviously not. Yet that's what the drink ads not so subtly imply. Spiekermann suggests the long term fallout of such manipulative practices is negative for the... Read more Help other customers find the most helpful reviews  Was this review helpful to you?  Report abuse | Permalink  Comment

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Praise For Do Good Design: How Design Can Change Our World

"I believe that the real value of this book does not reside in the plethora of data and information that it contains but rather in the compelling biographical account of the author's passionate journey to discover and advocate how design and designers can contribute to doing good in a fragile world."
– Jacques Lange
Icograda President (2005-2007)

"David Berman, in this lively visual narrative, reveals for us the power of design to drive consumption and some of our unbecoming behavior of recent decades. Yet, more importantly, he speaks of the extraordinary potential to design to change the world, leading human behavior toward our aspirational destinies."
– Richard Grefé
Executive director, AIGA | the professional association for design

"...just the right measure of passion and reticence...excellent."
– Ken Garland
Author, First Things First manifesto

"A fine read."
– Steven Rosenberg
Past President, Society of Graphic Designers of Canada

"I think the book is just great!"
– Mervyn Kurlansky
Co-founder, Pentagram UK
Past-President, Icograda

Online Sample Chapter

The Weapons: Visual Lies, Manufactured Needs

Table of Contents

Contents

vii Forewords
1 Introduction
4 The Creative Brief: disarming the weapons of mass deception
6 Chapter 1: Start now
20 Chapter 2: Beyond green: a convenient lie
30 Chapter 3: Pop landscape
48 Chapter 4: The weapons: visual lies and manufactured needs
60 Chapter 5: Where the truth lies: the slippery slope
72 Chapter 6: Wine, women, and water
84 Chapter 7: Losing our senses

102 The Design Solution: Convenient Truths
104 Chapter 8: Why our time is the perfect time
120 Chapter 9: How to lie, how to tell the truth
128 Chapter 10: How we do good is how we do good
134 Chapter 11: Professional climate change

146 The Do good Pledge
148 Chapter 12: “What can one professional do?”
159 Appendix A: First Things First manifesto
160 Appendix B: Excerpt from the GDC Code of Ethics
161 Appendix C: Excerpt from AIGA’s Standards of Professional

Practice
162 Appendix D: The road to Norway and China
165 Notes
171 Index
177 Questions for discussion
178 Acknowledgements: a small group of concerned citizens
180 About the author