Do Good Design: How Designers Can Save the World

Great design can be an agent of social change. The environmental crisis is the greatest issue of today, and according to author David Berman, consumerism is its largest cause ... often fuelled by convincing graphic and product design intended to invent 'needs'. Alternatively, creative professionals can use their skills to help spread messages and ideas the World really needs to hear, doing good by how we design and how we use design. This book offers a powerful and hopeful message that includes solutions that everyone will want to hear.

In this provocative and dramatically-illustrated book, David Berman argues that we live in an age where the democratisation of technology offers us each an opportunity to leave a greater legacy by the creative ideas we choose to share rather than the genes we strive to propagate. Indeed, the future of civilization has become our common design project. He believes that communications professionals have more conspicuous power than they realize, and play a core role in helping some corporations mislead audiences in order to invent unfulfilled 'needs' in larger and larger markets. In a World where design has become a recognized corporate asset, designers and their clients have the opportunity to use their persuasive skills responsibly and to accelerate awareness. Recent developments regarding professionalism and ethics offer powerful hope that there is great opportunity for designers and other professionals to choose what their still-young profession will be about: creating visual lies to help sell stuff or helping repair the World by bridging knowledge and understanding.