Citizen Designer

In this provocative anthology, today's most articulate designers and pundits explore what it means to be a designer in a corporate-driven, over-branded, global consumer culture. The book tackles design responsibility with a scope and diversity previously unseen.

Forty debate-stirring essays and interviews espouse viewpoints covering a wide range of social, professional, political, and cultural topics including: reality branding, game design and school violence, socially responsible advertising and exploitation, and design as a force for improving the environment. Edited by two prominent advocates of socially responsible design, Citizen Designer responds to the tough questions being asked by today's designers: How can a designer effect social or political change? Can design be more than a service to clients? When does a designer have to take responsibility for a client's actions? At what point must a designer take a stand?

Candid and incisive, this book encourages designers and students of design to carefully research the clients they work with; to be alert about corporate, political, and social developments; and to design socially responsible products.

With essays by: Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Julie Baugnet, Leslie Becker, Roy R. Behrens, Nancy Bernard, J.D. Biersdorfer, Anne Bush, Robbie Conal, Michael Dooley, Stuart Ewen, Thomas Frank, Ken Garland, Peter Hall, Mr. Keedy, Maud Lavin, Victor Margolin, Carolyn McCarron, Katherine McCoy, David Reinfurt, Chris Riley, Chase A. Rogers, Michael Schmidt, Judith Schwartz, Matt Soar, Gunnar Swanson, Susan S. Szenasy, Teal Triggs, Tucker Viemeister, David Vogler, and Cheryl Towler Weese. And interviews with: Fabrizio Gilardino, Milton Glaser, Kalle Lasn, Robert Menard, Don Norman, Mark Randall, David Sterling, Stanley Tigerman, and Shawn Wolfe. Co-published with the School of Visual Arts, New York."