There is no more fundamental task, for design professionals, than choosing clients. Because design work is so often identified with the client (it's their headquarters, their letterhead, etc.), a job can define a practice, a career. So how do we choose who we work with, knowing that in this imperfect world there are no perfect clients? Is it acceptable to work with a government with a poor record on human rights? How about a corporation with a spotty environmental history? Is it reasonable to engage with these institutions? Is it okay to leave their work to others so we might carve out some ostensibly "moral" practice working for...whom I'm not sure? We all make personal choices as we build our practices. What are yours? I hope you'll join the interesting dialogue on this subject ongoing as part of the series hosted by
Glass House Conversations.
Comments [7]
Shared moral values regarding which goodness are good or bad are hard to establish, but worthwhile. When everyone in the company does not understand the expectations for the type of client work considered acceptable, client and colleague relationships can collapse.
03.07.11
04:20
I think it is important to take on a project for the challenges it presents and the integrity as a project one can derive from it. We all might be better served by living up to our own morality issues rather than worry about someone elses.
03.07.11
05:27
Everyone has a moral and ethical framework. It is teasing out where that is. Everyones edge is somewhere a little different I've noticed.
03.08.11
08:30
There needs to be a much more rigorous questioning of the conditioning of design and what design conditions before we return to the question of how to respond in an ethical (or rather, political) manner.
03.08.11
08:34
03.08.11
03:49
03.08.11
08:23
Your decisions define you.
03.09.11
05:10