I am a cyclist. My only bike at the moment is a track bike that I ride daily, though my passion for which started off in a sub-faction of riding has shifted toward the main sport. Following various races in the professional world of cycling is fun, and I start to look at the top riders as idols for which I aspire to ride like.
Today was the 17th stage of the Tour de France, the largest cycling event in the world, and one of the largest sports events in history. Every year in France, riders compete for three weeks in grueling conditions that push their ability to perform on any successful level. It is professional sports, so undoubtedly comes with a very large amount of pressure placed on every competitor,... so they dope.
Doping is nothing new. Around the time of the origin of 'The Tour' in 1908 riders used cocaine as stimulant, and now the methods of performance enhancing drugs is amazingly effective and intricate. As one may guess, it is illegal in the sport to use any type of performance enhancing drugs. It is false and how can one tell who is a true champion when everyone is doping. So, while it has been a constant problem in cycling (and I'm sure almost every other sport) it has been recently exposed, and keeps surfacing as the ubiquitous problem. Cycling is one of the few sports with extremely regimented testing to curb such doping, though little the promoters do seem to deter the riders. From Floyd last year losing his title, to Vino and Rasmussen getting pulled from the current running Tour for an illegal blood and transfusion and failure to show up for random drug tests, respectively, it is a non-stop barrage of blemishes. The sport is dying here in the largest competition in front of the world. All because of what I think are simple ethics. (Here comes the design segway ; ) ) Design, like the Tour, is in its own state of ethic crisis.
Ethics are something all of us have. Some a lot, some almost none, but we all make decisions and have to base them off certain beliefs. As a designer, our ethics involve a wide range of scenarios from whether or not we choose to work for a large cigarette brand, to whether or not we use soy-based inks to print this catalog, to whether or not I have actual creative ownership of a particular creative. Design is a profession with a huge amount of responsibility and cultural impact, and needs a refined sense of ethics to properly approach the creative and culture it is reaching. But where are these ethics? Who is utilizing them?
Graphic Design is vastly becoming this medium 'that everyone can do.' I have photoshop, I can do your catalog. I got this cool image, and a scanner, so I can make your CD cover. As it grows the quality and inexperience of those executing the work and ethics are disintegrating. Those with the knowledge and ethics of the profession are being lost in the sea of mediocrity and poorly executed ideas that waste materials for companies that are as dubious as the work created for them.
Too many people are sitting by and watching this all happen. The majority know nothing about Design and what they are doing. Half are doing it themselves but trying to keep their mouth shouts. Very few are actually speaking up and trying to do something about it. This entry is but a trunk from which a handful of branches stem from hitting specific areas of ethics, like clients, plagiarism, environmental factors, et al. And while I don't want to focus on those specifically, it is the 'critical thought' which the trunk is about, and what Graphic Design is. The critical though that is not found in the mass of shit design plagued upon the world, and the critical thought or voice that is ruining one of the greatest sports in the world. It is time to take it all back and strive to make it the world it should be.
Today was the 17th stage of the Tour de France, the largest cycling event in the world, and one of the largest sports events in history. Every year in France, riders compete for three weeks in grueling conditions that push their ability to perform on any successful level. It is professional sports, so undoubtedly comes with a very large amount of pressure placed on every competitor,... so they dope.
Doping is nothing new. Around the time of the origin of 'The Tour' in 1908 riders used cocaine as stimulant, and now the methods of performance enhancing drugs is amazingly effective and intricate. As one may guess, it is illegal in the sport to use any type of performance enhancing drugs. It is false and how can one tell who is a true champion when everyone is doping. So, while it has been a constant problem in cycling (and I'm sure almost every other sport) it has been recently exposed, and keeps surfacing as the ubiquitous problem. Cycling is one of the few sports with extremely regimented testing to curb such doping, though little the promoters do seem to deter the riders. From Floyd last year losing his title, to Vino and Rasmussen getting pulled from the current running Tour for an illegal blood and transfusion and failure to show up for random drug tests, respectively, it is a non-stop barrage of blemishes. The sport is dying here in the largest competition in front of the world. All because of what I think are simple ethics. (Here comes the design segway ; ) ) Design, like the Tour, is in its own state of ethic crisis.
Ethics are something all of us have. Some a lot, some almost none, but we all make decisions and have to base them off certain beliefs. As a designer, our ethics involve a wide range of scenarios from whether or not we choose to work for a large cigarette brand, to whether or not we use soy-based inks to print this catalog, to whether or not I have actual creative ownership of a particular creative. Design is a profession with a huge amount of responsibility and cultural impact, and needs a refined sense of ethics to properly approach the creative and culture it is reaching. But where are these ethics? Who is utilizing them?
Graphic Design is vastly becoming this medium 'that everyone can do.' I have photoshop, I can do your catalog. I got this cool image, and a scanner, so I can make your CD cover. As it grows the quality and inexperience of those executing the work and ethics are disintegrating. Those with the knowledge and ethics of the profession are being lost in the sea of mediocrity and poorly executed ideas that waste materials for companies that are as dubious as the work created for them.
Too many people are sitting by and watching this all happen. The majority know nothing about Design and what they are doing. Half are doing it themselves but trying to keep their mouth shouts. Very few are actually speaking up and trying to do something about it. This entry is but a trunk from which a handful of branches stem from hitting specific areas of ethics, like clients, plagiarism, environmental factors, et al. And while I don't want to focus on those specifically, it is the 'critical thought' which the trunk is about, and what Graphic Design is. The critical though that is not found in the mass of shit design plagued upon the world, and the critical thought or voice that is ruining one of the greatest sports in the world. It is time to take it all back and strive to make it the world it should be.
posted by Jonathan Burkett at
11:13
