Do Designers need a Code of Practice?

1. Designing a Better World………………… Do Designers need a Code of Practice?

2. Overview • Why this question? • What is a Code of Practice? • What are the elements of responsible design? • What bearing if any can a code of practice have on designer behaviour and design outcomes - the case of Fashion

3. Why this question? • A Global rationale • Necessary to examine the limits and possibilities of design in the context of designing a better world • A Northumbria rationale • As we re-emerge from a period of internal re-evaluation of our subject areas, this question might help us focus on the values which underpin the core of what we do.

4. What is a code of practice? • a set of rules according to which people in a particular profession are expected to behave • a documented set of recommended or preferred processes, actions, or structures to be applied in a given setting

5. A Code of Practice can describe the minimum audit requirements and those that are considered to reveal a practice worthy of consideration.* • Codes of practice may be internal to an organisation or subject to an external monitoring process. * UNESCO definition

6. From codes of professional conduct to responsible design statements • Codes may be individual, group-specific, organisational, country-specific or transnational. • A code is a document, with no mandatory requirements, although it can be linked to other processes that may confer status, funding or prestige. • Some signs of a shift from how designers relate to each other as professionals in a commercial relationship to incorporation of the principles of responsible design

7. Some themes/directions in responsible design • Inclusive or Universal Design • Ethical Manufacture • Design for the Real World • Eco Design and Sustainability • Feminist Design • Design Activism • After Nigel Whitely 1993 Design for Society

8. Responsible Design The primary definition of responsible design can be taken as the fulfilment of the requirements that are demanded by the crucial moments in design: ends,means, and constraints. P. Madsen based on Preston Covey : Responsible Design and the Management of Ethics in Design Management Review Volume 16, Number 3, Summer 2005

9. "What is worth doing?" (ends), • "What is the right conduct?" (means), • and "How should one act under certain specific circumstances?" (constraints).

10. Which overarching principles should inform our practice? Individual Responsiveness Principle Policy Institutional Fisher C and Lovell A. 2003 Business Ethics and Values , Harlow FT: Prentice Hall

11. Ends • Is a specific design project worth doing? • Are aesthetics the overriding value? Art for art’s sake. Design for Design’s sake. • Commercial value = Ethical merit?

12. Means • What concerns arise when means are the focus? • Here the emphasis is on right conduct. • Are designers and design managers acting responsibly and making the correct choices?

13. Constraints • The location of the designer in a specific value chain is a crucial variable • Real-world conditions, such as cost targets, legislated performance and design criteria, the availability of resources, organizational support, and technical problems are only a few of the inevitable limitations that confront designers and design managers

14. Individual Designer Code constituency Corporate Design Team Design House Purchasing Department But.... Economic dependence versus design integrity Outsourced Manufacturing Public Good (?) but..... Triple Bottom Line ? ? ?

15. The Code Debate in Fashion • Companies in denial of any responsibility for sweatshop abuses • 1991 Levis publish first Code of Practice for their manufacturers • Results in an explosion of codes – and the emergence of a multi million $ CSR industry • Monitoring debate begins and is yet to be resolved • 2005 re-launch of Katherine Hamnett’s lines under stricter ethical guidelines signals the (re-)emergence of ethical fashion but as yet no UK Industry Code of Practice for designers or Fashion buyers

16. ‘The fashion business could not do better than by starting to look at its own house where the relationship between buyers, merchandisers and designers (and manufacturers) has always been fraught as each served personal rather than common interests. Perhaps, by working together, not just inside but outside the company, we could all arrive at more meaningful products with greater relevance to the new world we are going to live in’. David Shah Textile View • Mens & Womenswear Publishers Textile View 013

17. Some questions • Is there any value in drafting codes of practice for each of the subject areas in a Design School ? • If yes, what implications might such a discussion have for curriculum, if any? • Looking at the position of design in industry, what steps, if any, might be taken to ensure that design does deliver for a better world?