It almost saddens me that this will probably be a regular feature…
Patrick Williams at The Selling Sherpa blogs about a catering exhibitor at a trade show that wasn’t giving away samples of some very tasty treats on display. Read the post here.
Far too many web sites are doing the same thing - show off a greatly limited site, tour the features, but don’t take a test run until you give up a whole lot of information. Be cautious of your barriers to entry.
I came across this recently on Fonts.com, and a friend of mine questioned the ethics of creating a font that is a direct rip-off of a Jewish design style. This brings up interesting questions of appropriating culture and reinforcing cultural stereotypes. Designers raid all cultures for ideas, and like all ideas, some ideas are better than others. Point to ponder: I am holding a book of international colour schemes. Is it more or less of a rip off to take design element from a typeface and create a new font, or take a colour scheme that is obviously Chinese (red and gold, for example)? There is a class of typefaces called “Modern” that are predominantly French; if I designed my own Modern typeface, would I be accused of ripping off French culture? Is it more of a crime or less to rip off a European cultural element or to take, say, a Middle Eastern design element?
Design is not about right or wrong, it is about appropriate and inappropriate.
Design is first about very quick communication, and the lazy designers fall back on cultural clichés to do this. I’m not sure it’s an ethical issue, though.
Save This Page