The Impotence Of Being Earnest

Today in the design world, many designers are forced to choose between creating designs for consumers or designs for causes. In “The Impotence of Being Earnest,” Matt Soar addresses the relationships between these designers and the audience and purpose which they design for. Some designers choose to use their talent and focus it on designing for environmental causes, or educational purposes. I personally was wondering how these designers could financially afford to design for causes rather than for high-paying consumers, but quickly realized that the designers didn’t need the consumers to survive. These designers are often the ones who are already well-established, have money in the bank, and do not necessarily need to design for consumers anymore to put food on their table. Other designers, however, are not given such a luxury, and need to try to make a living off of their design work. Designing “for a good cause” isn’t very lucrative and most designers simply can’t live by doing work of this nature. The ability of the upper-class designers to design for worthy causes is something I can definitely appreciate, but I also understand the need to create more commercial designs for companies and consumers in order to make a living, and I certainly can’t hold that fact against designers who don’t make a ton of money. I personally feel that if I had to design for a living, I wouldn’t be concerned with designing for a cause or discriminating against certain clients because the jobs they required of me were not moral-based ones. Design is needed for all types of situations, be they charitable or commercial.