sign here
be transparent
We live in a world where you can sometimes barely see the difference between real or AI, there’s fake news and where people are benefitting from privileges they maybe didn’t even know they had. That’s why it’s important that we as Designers make you aware of these things, be transparent about ourselves and the knowledge that we do or don’t have. A big part of Graphic Design is bringing information to a wide audience, but how do we know what sources are used? How do we know the amount of knowledge the designer has on the subject?
as graphic designers we should be transparent about: the boundaries of our knowledge and our sources.
When we design people should be able to see where we got our knowledge from. People and other designers should be able to relate themselves to a design by looking at its resources. You could question if it is ethical to design about a subject you don’t know enough about. Can you do justice to the contents? In this manifesto we state that you need to be transparent about the boundaries of your knowledge, to be honest about what you know and what you don’t know.
as graphic designers we should be transparent about: our own biases
When we design, it’s crucial to acknowledge and be aware of our own biases. Being able to work as a graphic designer is a privilege in itself. Choosing a path to earn a living within a 'risky' profession isn't suited for everyone; some view it as a field reserved for the elite. As designers we have the potential to inform and start a conversation. Accessibility to design should be inclusive, as design significantly benefits society. We can make the barrier to entry design lower by being transparent about our own biases. We must be transparent about our background, living environment and our own biases, as they shape our worldview and inherently influence the decisions we make in design.
as a graphic designer we should be transparent about: the use of technology
In a world where technology is advancing literally by the day, we designers must be transparent about how we use these technologies in our work. AI is one of those that requires extra attention. In a very short time it has become a dominant technology in our society. Programs like ChatGPT, DALL·E, Stable Diffusion are used to generate full fledged texts like movie scripts and artworks that can compete in art contests. With these generators come a lot of concerns and critiques. What data is the AI trained on? Who has authorship of the generated works? Can you be authentic when using AI or can you even call the generated works art?
There isn’t really a clear answer to all of these questions and rebelling against these advancements is useless and unwise. These technologies don’t have to replace humans, but can also be used as really helpful tools. For us designers it can be used to complete tedious jobs like masking objects in an image, leaving the creator with less creative bottlenecks. We need to find a way to coexist with these new technologies and most importantly be transparent how we use them.
Even if you don’t consider yourself a graphic designer, you can take these statements and link them to your own discipline. The rapid changes in our world affect everyone, and we think it is crucial to take them into account in all different fields of work. Take our manifest as a law that we as graphic designers want to adhere to. So everyone will be able to check us if we stick to our own rules. Everyone will be able to form their own opinion on design. Through our transparency we give everybody a new insight behind the curtain. Hopefully this way, fake news will not survive.
We propose a way for graphic designers to make it easy to be transparent. And to make this information accessible to everyone. Some kind of platform, where designers can put their resources and background information. To display all the kinds of information and knowledge that we talked about in this manifest.
As graphic designers we should be transparent about: our sources, the boundaries of our knowledge, our own biases and the use of technological developments.
Feel free to sign this manifest, designer or not, if you agree with these statements.