Not that I’m not a fan of environmental good, I am, but I feel as though I personally would have more of a connection with social good. Considering where I see myself in the future in my design career. I’ll do my part in reducing my emissions and being environmentally conscious of course, but I can’t particularly see myself working in the field that directly correlates with any large scale movements. Now that the foundation is down, let me elaborate a bit.
In my near future, I would like to work as a designer for a craft brewery. Maybe designing labels for their different selections of brews, or advertisements, or just about anything within that world. Because that line of work interests me. That being said, there are many avenues in the brewing industry to incorporate both environmentally friendly habits, and social good. A few that comes to mind for the environmental aspect are labels made with recycled paper and glued on with an organic substance, switching from aluminum to glass bottles (like it was decades ago) as glass bottles hold up longer and are able to be reused for many different applications, providing the brewery in question with advertising that supports the environment, and many more that I’ve thought about previously but are not coming to mind. That being said, as beer tends to be a rather social thing throughout time, I find it easier to connect that industry with social good. Therefore I find it would be more beneficial to my design process to focus on social issues more, with where I see myself going in the future.
I find my responsibility to be like anyone else’s when it comes to design or just life as it is. Now, I understand that design has a very significant influence over individuals, I do. However, I don’t particularly agree with the idea that my significance (being a designer) is any more than someone else’s, being whoever they are. Not that I’m going to go out and submit to some corporation, promoting the benefits of burning oil and chopping down the rainforest. But naturally I’m going to try to work for places that I agree with. So hopefully from there I shouldn’t have any concerns about their design requests and such. But if I do, I’ll attempt to make an argument against their potentially ignorant or harmful request. Depending on what it is, I may just have to go through with the design unfortunately. But if it’s something particularly horrid (I hope not, again, only work for a company I agree with) then I’ll just quit on the spot. That being said, I cannot imagine a scenario that could ever reasonably occur. What do I know though, I’m not in the official field quite yet.
