Seminar 2 - Consumption, Production, and Ecology of Design (click to comment)

Siegel, Dmitri - Designing Our Own Graves and

Littler, Jo - What's wrong with ethical consumption

To start our Consumption, Production, and Ecology of Design themed week, I read Dmitri Siegel’s essay ‘Designing Our Own Graves.’ Siegel is a contributing writer to various design blogs, creative director at Urban Outfitters interactive and videos, partner at Ante Projects, creative director at Anathema magazine, and faculty member at University of the Arts in PA, basically he is well-versed and a qualified resource on design in today’s world. Siegel discusses the DIY design style / aesthetic as a greater “design your life” concept. DIY is the new trend, and a very vibrant one at that. Every day people take photos themselves, create clothes themselves, cook food themselves, and show their skills off to the world through social media. Siegel describes how Joe Scanlan mocks this by showing a DIY coffin from an IKEA bookcase. While countless hours of thought and design goes into each and every IKEA item, from experienced craftsmen, the “regular Joe” can create a wine bar out of some old crates in a weekend. Does all this DIY take away from the artisan?

Flikr and Wikipedia create a platform where the consumer produces and provides the labor (which Siegel names prosumerism). People today have a “templated mind” which means they want to have their own input into something, play with text and layout so it fits what they imagine, and get a sense of ownership for what they commission or produce. My own website where this blog is kept is a great example of this. Squarespace allows me to play with different templates so that I can find a design that functions as I want it. But this begs the question: is my website my own work or just my images set into a template designed by a different artist?

Nowadays, publishing your writing is a snap. Anyone can simply put words up on a blog, photos up on a Instagram, or recipes up on a website, BUT what comes into question then is ownership. We, as creative illustrators and designers in the 21st century, have to be careful what we produce and where we present it. Being featured on Instagram is an honor, but being copied or having your work stolen can be crushing.

Nobody actually owns the internet. If you produce original work you technically own the copyright for it, but how do you protect yourself and your work? How do you balance sharing the art you create to gain a ‘following’ with getting that art’s value and your worth as an artist? These are the types of questions that came to my mind as I was reading Siegel’s essay. Though free access to certain things at times is helpful, even I’m guilty of seeking “public domain” art such as typeface I can download and use for free.

Something else Siegel points out is that book covers used to sell books, but now more money and effort goes into reviews and Google searches to sell a book because that’s what consumers use to gauge their purchases. Often if a book has been made into a “major motion picture” that film finds its way onto the cover of the books. Suddenly it’s as if the book needs to be validated that it’s worth reading by showcasing known actors on its cover or adding a sticker about the film, even though the words inside have remained the same. Have consumers been programmed to need validation for their purchases and interests? Have we forgotten how to trust our own instincts?

Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky (cover)

Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky (cover)

Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky (cover after film created)

Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky (cover after film created)

In addition to our thinking of what an image is, our thinking of its size has also altered. Canvas sizes have shrunk, so many things must now fit in a square to be easily shared. I agree with Siegel that new media platforms create new needs, requirements, and restrictions for art and design, but they can also generate creative thinking to find solutions. Instagram layouts that expand beyond the little squares and function as a larger image are great examples of this.

Instagram layout

Instagram layout

Instagram layout

Instagram layout

This easy access to art is a new hurdle for artists of today to face. As young illustrators and designers, I think it’s important to give your art it’s due worth and share it but not undermine its value. I have had people ask for illustrations from me and as soon as I say the word ‘contract’ they disappeared. This can be challenging. Many people, especially the DIY type, have a perception that art is so readily accessible that if one person seems too difficult there are hundreds of other artists out there willing to put their pens to work for free.

This starts to tie into Littler’s essay which speaks upon the issues of consumption and consumerism. Although Siegel and Wild were meant to be tied together, I felt Littler had a better connection to Siegel’s essays, and so for this post I will be speaking on these two. Littler discusses Fair Trade, buying local, greenwashing, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), and CSA (Corporate Social Accountability). Fair Trade is a concept which many people are familiar. Items in stores or at churches that are sold “fair trade” can be seen as a better option than purchasing items mass produced. But how does that effect buying local?

To really expand this thought, could the concept of “buy local” expand even to art? Don’t buy from Hallmark, seek a local artist and buy their card, or don’t go to grocery stores, buy from farmer’s markets. But then what happens to the people who work for Hallmark and at Super Markets? Where does the line get drawn between ethical consumption of products and ethical support of someone’s right to a job? Both the person handcrafting cards or growing vegetables as well as the people working at Hallmark or grocery stores need jobs (otherwise there would be no money to spend on greeting cards or broccoli, no matter where it was from), but how do we support BOTH in today’s world? If big chains did better to ensure their products weren’t mass produced by underpaid labor, would people still buy local? Littler mentions Sharon Zukin’s observation that as farmer’s markets spring up in certain areas those areas can become gentrified, causing working-class living there to become cast out. Does this not cause yet another issue?

In regards to CSR, I have worked for a bank where they made efforts to do “Good Works” such as collecting school supplies and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity which many companies utilize for work social outings. These things felt expected by the companies, but is it integral in their mission statement? Are there aspects of these companies which counters the “Good Works” CSR efforts they make?

Littler discusses how the real issue is over-buying, not what we’re buying. Humans learn to adapt very quickly, but they also become accustomed to certain lifestyle choices quickly too, such as the use of plastic or styrofoam over glass or paper to house food. Seeing the use of wooden utensils as disposable instead of plastic made me wonder why we ever used plastic (though I know it was likely for convenience in production and price). But if we could so quickly have more wooden utensils pop up, why can’t plastic be completely discarded? Then again, what effect would the increased need for wood have on our environment? Furthermore, although people have too much, what gets cut out? If everyone didn’t buy those “little extras” such as Fair Trade jewelry or handmade cheese boards, what would happen to those artists? Whatever someone believes to be the best option, art is one medium in which those feelings can be expressed.

What Littler mentions in her sections “Ethical consumption and the ‘responisibilization’ of the individual” makes me wonder who is actually responsible to change the way function as not only a society, but as mankind across the globe. Is it the job of the individual, the you and me of the everyday people, to make changes big and small such as using cloth bags instead of plastic ones or only taking public transport? Or is it the job of the “big guy,” government and corporations, to establish change? But aren’t governments and corporations made up of the everyday you and me? Are we not all the same at the core? I think that changing whose shoes you’re wearing greatly changes your outlook on issues. For example, I was in full support for the increase in minimum wage until I spoke to a small business owner. She explained that if the minimum wage increased to high, she would no longer be able to stay in business because she couldn’t afford to pay her employees. She employs students part time and for the most part they don’t need to be making a very high hourly wage. But then you look to someone who works full time at a fast food chain and needs that income to support their family, so a higher wage is necessary. How do you invoke one wage to accommodate both? You can’t. This, like most of these consumerism and green issues, in my opinion, don’t have one blanket solution. I feel that Littler’s essay seems to bring this to light as she points out multiple positives as well as flaws in the varied opinions on these topics.

Littler’s essay also made me wonder: is ethical consumption a middle-class, Americana, or UK demonstration of guilt? You likely don’t hear someone in Kenya chatting about how they bought a clay pot from a local artisan. It seems that there isn’t a single cure-all for the issues of consumerism. Littler even mentions the difficulty in singling out low-cost stores, such as Primark, as unethical in their production because it targets the working class who can only afford to shop at more “affordable” places. Littler goes even farther to say that at times the attacks on certain consumer trends is actually meant to attack specific groups of people in order to limit their power. There are such varied opinions and point of views it’s difficult to sift through them all to find one answer.

In general, it seems that both Siegel and Littler notice people want what they want, whether that be a DIY series of t-shirts or the choice to use a paper or a plastic straw. At a country club on Long Island the decision was made by management to switch to paper straws in order to demonstrate an environmental awareness, but many of the members disliked them and demanded the plastic straws be brought back. In the end, the country club had to offer both paper and plastic in an effort to please all its guests. I’ve been to restaurants where they only give you a straw if you ask, a bar where they use a piece of straw as a straw, and I’ve seen coworkers bring in metal or reusable plastic straws for their drinks in the office. Are those of us using the paper alternatives being ethical consumers while those choosing plastic are blatantly ignoring the environment? Or would someone else argue that the paper straws contribute to deforestations to produce and so none of us are being fully aware of our choices? Where does the spiral of attack cease? Do humans allow themselves to do anything “right” or are we hard wired and programmed to look for faults?

As artists, are our creations contributing to consumerism? Look at the paper we use, the paints, the countless drafts and redrafts… Does art make being ethically aware a difficult task? This is perhaps one argument I am not yet ready to tackle. But I do think that as artists we are able to contribute our opinions and thoughts to the issue. A positive reinforcement on giving of a non-material type can be seen in ‘The Gift of Nothing’ by Patrick McDonnell, the illustrator and genius behind the Mutts cartoon. Personally, I think it says quite a lot.

Patrick McDonnell - Mutts

Patrick McDonnell - Mutts

 
Victoria TrentacosteComment