COP3 / Critical Writing / Talk with John

CRITICAL WRITING / COP
TALK WITH JOHN WATTERS.
RECOMMENDATIONS & RESEARCH 

During the group crit that I attended, on of the suggestions was to talk to john about his experiences and his views on ethics. During the PPP session the next day I found time to talk to John briefly about my dissertation subject.

He explained how he has had a couple of jobs that maybe at the tim the didn't really take in to consideration the ethical side of some projects until after he had completed the brief. He talked about some work he had carried out for, I think it was, the ministry of defence or some company that had dealings with weaponry and defence systems. He explained how he was involved with typical brochure and editorial designs that explained and presented the relevant facilities. After he had worked with this, he mentioned that he the got contacted from a similar institute in the US were he designed similar editorial material. Again he was contacted to work on 'Branding a Missile' and at this he said that he could not take up this job offer. The previous jobs had paid very well and even though it was related to weaponry and defence systems, he kind of knew that these facilities would only be used in a defensive situations such as foiling terrorist attacks, where as the branding of a missile, this is something that was more purposeful in an attacking situation. He explained that he was almost taken a back with the way he felt when asked about this project, and realised that this was his personal moral standing took more importance than taking up this kind of job. In this instance, he took a responsible decision depending on his own ethics.

I asked about the example of taking the clients word for it when using information on packaging and branding and using the details given or taking extra time and investigation a little further into whether these details re the truth. He said that there would be no harm in asking for a certificate of proof as companies should have this anyway when placing a product on the market, so if they are genuine they should already have the necessary documentation of regulation procedures.

John started to talk about larger companies and whether or not individual designers with in these companies would be able to decline working on a project on moral grounds. I then explained that this is something that I have wanted to do through interviews as part of a case study. I told him about my plans to conduct an interview with DSM as the have had previous experiences in working for a large branding company in Elmwood. He agreed that this would give a good insight to how these kind of studios worked and he said that he would have thought that declining a job on moral grounds shouldn't be a problem but it depends on contract agreements.

He suggested that I try and gather contacts made up by design studios that should include details on this and what agreements are made and signed off on by the individual designer and the employer. He said that this should be pretty straight forward to find on the internet.

Another suggestion that John made was for me to get a Linkedin account. This way I can contact multiple professionals i order to gain different insights and opinions on the situation of ethical practice.



This talk with John was very helpful and I feel that I have gained a few more sources on interest in regards to the gathering of primary research as well as more diverse sorces rather than just books.

I am defiantly going to look into joining some linkedin forums as well as looking at contracts online in order to gain insight on the workings of different companies.