Accountability In Design

Well this got me fired up! It's a subject so near and dear to my heart I don't even know where to begin.  It all started when I read today’s post, "Branding Tragedy" from Eric Karjaluoto on ideasonideas. It's absolutely 100% a great article and thank god someone is finally addressing this and addressing it in an intelligent and thoughtful way.

I am a news junkie. My mother was a news junkie. She read 3 newspapers front to back everyday and watched the evening news at 6:00 and 11:00. She taught me that to get a true idea of a story or situation one had to read from many sources. She stressed Editorials. Both pro and con; democratic and republican. As a woman of 2006, I have found that this advice still holds true. I read the newspaper and several online news subscriptions (from a variety of countries), and I find that today it is harder than ever to get at the actual FACTS. Reporting FACTS…wasn’t this once the mission of the news media?  No opinions, no hype. Just the facts.

Karjaluoto writes, “…I now simply accept it as a weak and tacky fashion of advertising; yet, my peers and I are generally quite critical and aware of such trickery–I question whether the entire population is as on-guard regarding the legitimacy of claims made in such a forum.”

Today I watch news media on TV where people are yelling and screaming at each other their “opinions”. They call this debate. I watch for the 100th time fodder about Paris Hilton, and Brad and Angelina’s new baby and I wonder…isn’t there anything else more important going on in the world today? Surely there must be…why aren’t they talking about it? What’s happening in Amsterdam, Brazil, Finland or Tokyo? Why is it all just hype and glitz? I plead to my TV….Someone please just tell me the facts so I can make up my own mind. Leave Brad and Angelina to Entertainment Tonight but when I watch NEWS…give me news!

Ideasonideas takes this a step further. Eric Karjaluoto writes about the state of the media today and how as designers we are partly responsible for the glitz and hype and how we can thoughtfully and responsibly correct it. Let’s also consider this “shift in the web” called 2.0 and as we discuss ideas about web standards and accessibility why not also give thought to accountability in the visual graphics we create. Let us not gloss over the “experience” and shine light only on the “sensational”, but consider in design and advertising what is true.

Yes YES Eric…let’s do it. You and me and supporters and friends…let’s start a campaign called “Operation Accountability”. And let’s make a logo for it but without the metallic forms, lens flares and definitely not rotating. Surely as creatives we can do this!