Stereotypes and prejudices are not easily overcome. They are ingrained in us from an early age and from a place of security and comfort: home. The tendency to stereotype, which is present in all of us, is frequently reinforced by social customs, our education systems, and the media.
Race, religion, socio-economic class, lived geographic locations, and personal beliefs all contribute to the unique perspectives we take as creative professionals. The need to understand how these differences shape who we are and thus our approach to visual messages is an ethical component of the graphic designer’s professional duties. The need for graphic designers is urgent: for if these differences and the potentially skewed perspectives are not recognized, then slippage between accurate and faulty messages will occur in design works that can potentially influence a greater population. Sticks + Stones is an iterative collaborative project that applies this objective to design education.
Sticks + Stones project leaders aim to propagate knowledgeable, culture-savvy designers who have learned first-hand from an extraordinarily diverse group of peers about the insulting and potentially harmful effects of image misuse. For the 2010 iteration, the project leaders deliberately gathered design students from diverse geographical regions across the globe in order to provide first-person learning opportunities.
During the June 2010 iteration, students from China, Germany, Israel, Russia, Poland, England, Turkey, and the United States assembled in Berlin, Germany for a two-week symposium. During this time these students participated in discussions and symposium activities focused around the topics of culture, immigration/migration and representation. Project leaders deliberately challenged students to evaluate their beliefs of the “other,” recognize the limitations of their knowledge, and realize the need for professional research. Students collaborated on a series of corresponding design projects that were exhibited at the DesignTransfer gallery in Berlin that same month.
Berlin is a vibrant yet historically conflict-ridden city—an excellent backdrop for a curriculum addressing individual identity, propaganda, and the perpetuation of stereotypes, especially those as related to immigrants. Universität der Künste generously agreed to host the project symposium.
Students visited the House of World Cultures, the Jewish Museum, and the Bauhaus-Archiv, and took a guided tour of Kreuzberg, a neighborhood in Berlin that historically has a large percentage of immigrants, many of whom are of Turkish descent. (Germany’s strained relationship with Turkish immigrants is similar to the United States’ strained relationship to Mexican immigrants.) The information learned from these scheduled activities as well as the informal participant discussions influenced the overall exhibit.
The challenge of preparing effective, ethical messages increases as global culture continues to grow more ethnically complex. It is important for the future architects of our communication environment to experience first-hand that the designer is an agent of social influence. Sticks + Stones 2010 advances the following notion: design education should emphasize that the end goals of our work, whatever the immediate intent, must also be responsible to the larger societal context.
Opportunities for awareness and learning about ethical considerations of the design profession are limited outside a university setting. If college students are not exposed to these issues, then they will most likely conduct their professional career unaware of this essential knowledge. If students can learn to make a difference, the collective positive effect might also be felt globally.
Stereotyping works as an obstacle to change and transformation. Graphic designers can work to combat that resistance with awareness and new approaches to message making.
