Do Good: How Design Can Change the World

Do Good: How Design Can Change the World

by R.G.D. David B. Berman FGDC
Released December 2008
Publisher(s): New Riders
ISBN: 9780321573599

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Book description

How Design CAN CHANGE the World 

Today, everyone is a designer. And the future of  civilization is our common design project.

How does design help choose our leaders?
Why do we really have an environmental crisis?
How can accessible design broaden your audience?
Why does the U.S. economy now struggle to compete?
How has design thinking added to the bottom line of the world’s most valuable companies?


Design matters. As it never has before.

Design creates so much of what we see, what we use, and what we experience. In a time of unprecedented environmental, social, and economic crises, designers must now choose what their young profession will be about: deploying weapons of mass deception — or helping repair the world.

Do Good Design is a call to action:
This book alerts us to the role design plays in persuading global audiences to fulfill invented needs. The book then outlines a sustainable approach to both the practice and the consumption of design. All professionals will be inspired by the message of how we can feel better and do better while holding onto our principles.

In a time when anything has become possible, design thinking offers a way forward for us all.

What will you do?

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
    1. Dedication
  2. FSC
    1. Why we chose Malloy to manufacture this book
    2. Why we chose New Riders and AIGA to publish this book
  3. Foreword
  4. Foreword To The Chinese Edition[2]
  5. Letter From Aiga
  6. A designer is
    1. Introduction
  7. The Creative Brief: Disarming the Weapons of Mass Deception
    1. 1. Start Now
      1. How design failed democracy
      2. “Drink Milk. Love Life.”
      3. Persuasion
      4. A teenage civilization
    2. 2. Beyond Green: a Convenient Lie
      1. Subprime ethics
      2. Designing climate change
      3. Design matters: design for all
      4. Brainchild: beyond DNA, beyond instinct
    3. 3. Pop Landscape
      1. Coke
      2. Usurping cultural landscape
      3. From Montpelier to São Paolo
    4. 4. The Weapons: Visual Lies, Manufactured Needs
      1. Brand literacy
        1. So how much is a message worth?
        2. Global Branding 2.0
    5. 5. Where The Truth Lies: A Slippery Slope
      1. So what’s wrong with weaving powerful messaging and branding?
      2. Designing memories
      3. Where does the answer lie?
      4. Distancing ourselves
    6. 6. Wine, Women, and Water
    7. 7. Losing Our Senses
      1. Teaching kids to smoke and eat junk: how logo can we go?
      2. Our inner child
      3. Common sense of smell
      4. Conspicuous powers
      5. Why must we take responsibility?
  8. The Design Solution: Convenient Truths
    1. 8. Why our time is the Perfect time
      1. What’s your favorite typeface?
      2. Smoke and mirrors
      3. Don’t Shoot The Messenger
      4. Design for the people, by the people
      5. Freedom of speech
      6. Safer cigarettes
      7. Blind justice
      8. Perfect storm
    2. 9. How to Lie, How to Tell the Truth
      1. Customer heroes, corporate heroes
      2. Real-time ethics
      3. “But I will lose my job...”
    3. 10. How we do Good is how we do Good
      1. Second nature: embracing sustainable design practices
    4. 11. Professional Climate Change
      1. First things first
      2. Designers united, designers taking responsibility
      3. Certifying graphic designers
      4. Global movement
      5. Design events
      6. Designing for all
      7. First things next
      8. Massive change happens
      9. Consumers of Design: Shopping Tips For Agents of Social Change
  9. The Do Good Pledge
    1. 12. “What Can Any Professional Do?” Commit!
      1. 1. “I will be true to my profession.”
      2. 2. “I will be true to myself.”
      3. 3 “I will spend at least 10 percent of my professional time helping repair the world.”
        1. Make money doing it
        2. Now
        3. Are you ready to take the Do Good Pledge?
        4. What this profession will be about is now up to us
        5. Act now
        6. Read more, do more
  10. A. First Things First Manifesto
    1. A manifesto by Ken Garland, London, 1964
  11. B. Excerpt From The Gdc’s Code of Ethics
    1. Responsibility to Society and the Environment
  12. C. Excerpt from Aiga’s Standards of Professional Practice
    1. The designer’s responsibility to the public
    2. The designer’s responsibility to society and the environment
  13. D. The Road to Norway and China
  14. Notes
    1. Chapter 1
    2. Chapter 2
    3. Chapter 3
    4. Chapter 4
    5. Chapter 5
    6. Chapter 6
    7. Chapter 7
    8. Chapter 8
    9. Chapter 9
    10. Chapter 10
    11. Chapter 11
    12. Chapter 12
  15. Questions for Discussion
  16. Acknowledgments: A Small Group of Concerned Citizens
  17. About the Author

Product information

  • Title: Do Good: How Design Can Change the World
  • Author(s): R.G.D. David B. Berman FGDC
  • Release date: December 2008
  • Publisher(s): New Riders
  • ISBN: 9780321573599