Communication, Persuasion, Activity & Ignorance is a critical discourse that attempts to discern an ethical framework for the graphic designer. The discourse explores the consumerist model, and the role the designer as a mediator between consumerism’s two–parties: the producers and the consumers.
Communication, Persuasion, Activity & Ignorance considers the moral philosophies of Immanuel Kant, and David Hume, and Marx’s critique of the capitalist model as a basis to assess ethics within the consumerist industry. The discourse then considers seminal writings of practicing designers by these ethical standards to outline an ethical framework.
Ken Garland’s First Things First manifesto, and Michael Beirut’s Ten Footnotes on a Manifesto offer drastically opposing views of the ethical designer. Finally, the practice of Grapus, and the Atelier Populaire, the collective from which the former spawned illustrate the means by which ethical standards are theorised and practiced.