Tyranny of Taste
What is good
design and who
gets to decide?
Design threads
Thread 1
Taste isn’t innocent. While taste may seem subjective and individual — one person’s trash is another’s treasure — it also reflects existing hierarchies of power. Operating within an increasingly global and connected world, designers are challenging long-established definitions of how design looks and behaves. How do we define “good” and “bad” design? How do we unlearn the Western tradition as the only way? How can we promote inclusion in a system that excludes so many? In a field that claims to be forward-thinking, designers are interrogating the rules of taste and calling out structural inequalities that can no longer be ignored.
1.1
TASTE REFLECTS POWER
“IF WE ARE MAKERS OF TASTE OR VISUAL CULTURE, WHO IS DECIDING WHAT IS GOOD? AND WHY THOSE PEOPLE?”
The conversation between good and bad taste is impossible to separate from the people, institutions, and education that taught it as a binary. “When I got to college, design was mainly a European and North American space. Only what people from these areas did was relevant. [...] European modernism is not the only answer to design.”
Consciously or not, design movements from Europe are still a primary framework through which we evaluate design around us. This predominantly white, Western perspective perhaps has the most power in university classrooms and curricula across the globe, where the few students who come from less privileged backgrounds often feel unrepresented and excluded.
BREAK-THE-CANON.INTERACTION
“I had access to [a university design program] because of an affirmative action policy in Brazil. Thanks to this system, I got an education in design, but design that came from a Eurocentric or North American perspective. I was only exposed to foreign references like Swiss and German rationalism — there were no Brazilian references in my classes. One of my teachers favored students who spoke German. I always felt very excluded. Like other students coming from poor, black, indigenous families, I felt like a stranger in a space where I wasn’t represented.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
There’s a sense that Western design movements have ruled from their ivory tower for too long. Designers are challenging the notion that any work that disobeys classical conventions or form-follows-function principles should be labeled trashy, messy, or "too much.” As one interviewee put it, "Whose taste matters? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not effective or good."
WHOSE TASTE MATTERS? DESIGN THREADS EXHIBITION AT WIX PLAYGROUND
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FIGHT FOR THE UGLINESS, @SCREENSAVIORS
Just take Massimo Vignelli, who famously proclaimed that the proliferation of typefaces “represents a new level of visual pollution threatening our culture” and that designers should only use a few and “trash the rest.” Declarations like these start to reveal the body of laws that, upon closer look, only take some views into account. While clarity and utility can’t be ignored, the notion that design languages outside of modernist tradition are trash doesn’t hold water in 2022. If a radically open understanding of design threatens the old myths of taste, hopefully it can propel design into a more exciting, if uncomfortable, future.
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Our respondents also respect tradition, indicating that despite a desire to embrace perspectives, designers don’t want to throw all the rules out the window. “Nowadays, how do you differentiate between a trend and design history? We're simultaneously using all these different vernaculars from all these different times.”
ON “GOOD” VS. “BAD”:
“A good design can be straightforward, very clean. But it can also be something that is supposed to make you feel cramped and a little uncomfortable, but also curious.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“A lot of designers’ work falls on the lines of a Swiss grid system, using that as a base and a starting point. Then we like to break it, we like to make it our own, we have to add our own perspective and spice, if you will. But honestly, if you went to design school in the Western world, we probably have the same base. And I think it's challenging because there are other [non-western] design movements and perspectives that are interesting.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“Sometimes I have to catch myself when I’m looking at something and saying, ‘that's horrible’. Well, why do I think that's horrible? Is it because aligning myself to a set of values that are outdated? If I think Swiss design is the ultimate design, I’m not questioning that notion of what I've been told is good design. So even if I don't immediately like something, I sort of try to look for redeeming qualities in it.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
08.2022
1.2
GOING GLOBAL
“WE DON’T IDEALIZE OR GLORIFY SPECIFIC PEOPLE OR MOVEMENTS AS MUCH ANYMORE. THERE'S NOT A SINGLE VOICE THAT IS THE RIGHT ONE.”
GOOD-DESIGN-AT-WORK
Designers are challenging the idea that a single person or movement can do it all, but could they ever? A larger-than-life spotlight puts too much emphasis on the views of star “rulers of taste” who may have played a role in where we are today.
The internet expanded the frontiers of design, giving access to more sources of inspiration and opportunities for those outside the inner circle to be seen and heard. While this growing body of references and work circulating to anyone with internet connection creates its own problems, globalization has begun to destabilize the hierarchy of big names in favor of smaller practices and freelance designers from around the world — not just the design capitals. The design stars are dimming, gatekeeping is waning, and clients are more interested in local perspectives with a point of view than agencies with a shelf of Lions. Beyond adding seats to the “good design” table, designers are dismantling the table piece by piece.
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@SCREENSAVIORS, 2019
According to designers, the way out of this double bind isn’t to go back to the old masters, but continue fostering plurality and embracing specific perspectives that may not fall in line with global trends or pre-approved styles.
Global appeal cannot be denied, but designers recognize the value of local perspectives: “I like thinking on a local level. [...] We really have to look around at our own communities and the people who are seeing what we're making, and who we're making things for. It makes us more grounded.”
1.3
DECONSTRUCT THE SYSTEM
“HOW DO WE MEANINGFULLY INTERVENE TO CHANGE BROKEN SYSTEMS?”
If the design narrative is a progressive, forward-thinking field, statistics tell a different story. According to AIGA + Google’s 2019 Design Census, only 3% of designers (across diverse specializations) identified as Black.
The question posed in 2015 by Maurice Cherry (and others) remains urgent seven years later: “Where are the Black designers?” And with it comes further questioning of who has been and is still excluded from the field, particularly in leadership positions. Where are the Indigenous designers? The AAPI designers? The Latinx designers? The disabled designers? The women, nonbinary, trans, and queer designers? The list goes on.
Look at any slice of the industry and you’ll find evidence of how deep racial, class, and gender biases run. Projects like Judging by the Cover, created by interviewee Leonardo de Vasconelos, use data visualization to highlight stark racial disparities in design publications, even among more progressive publishers.
While some respondents see shifts toward inclusivity in design, many pointed to the potential pitfalls and contradictions of that process as it unfolds under capitalism.
ON INCLUSIVITY UNDER CAPITALISM:
“I think the industry has become more inclusive than it used to be. We've maybe created more diversity, but still less than 10% of all designers are Black, at least in the New York scene. So I think too much pride can keep us from making additional progress. ”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“I don't think design will ever be actually inclusive. Because, well, capitalism will never be inclusive! We're operating under it, so it has become more inclusive, but in a way that’s motivated by profit.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“Literally how do I work in a field that’s origins are explicitly related to propping up capitalism and supporting colonialist ideals?”
OPEN CALL RESPONSE
2022
Interviewees are questioning what real inclusion in design should look like. Many seem dissatisfied with mainstream attempts at inclusivity, specifically those in corporate contexts. Take for example: diverse representations without material inclusion / benefit, image-driven DEI efforts and other initiatives that end up resulting in tokenism instead of change in organizational structures.
QUOTE BY GRACE HOPPER, ILLUSTRATED BY HANNAH PAHL
ON MATERIAL CHANGE:
“If you're interested in, for example, bringing people into design who are not more people from rich backgrounds, you have to change, for example, your system of grants, and scholarships; then your system of work, economy, and so forth. There are many levels.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“Change doesn't happen overnight. But we can promote change through relationship building, maybe building capacity, building networks, building collective knowledge, collective understanding around a particular topic as we attempt to negotiate it. ”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“We have to think about what inclusion actually is, and if inclusion, as we are seeing it today, may not allow for real change inside the organization. Sometimes we see inclusive spaces, where the people who make the decisions are the same people [who’ve been in power], and they’re just changing the composition of the people around them a bit. We need to give people the possibility to create a new way to organize.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
If taste isn’t innocent, then neither is design. Designers refuse to ignore the deep-seated inequalities of the industry, but questioning the tyranny of its origins and disrupting the canon is only the beginning. Designers agree real progress must shift to the structural: who makes decisions, who benefits financially, who gets in, who is kept out, and what systems of power rule.
💬 UNRAVEL
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HOW DO OUR TASTES AND DEFINITIONS OF “GOOD DESIGN” REFLECT WHAT WE WERE TAUGHT?
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WHOSE IDEOLOGIES HAVE WE FOLLOWED AND WHOSE MIGHT WE HAVE EXCLUDED?
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HOW CAN WE HELP TO MAKE PRACTICES OF INCLUSION INSTITUTIONS AND AGENCIES MORE MATERIALLY BENEFICIAL FOR THE GLOBAL MAJORITY OF DESIGNERS, RATHER THAN THE IMAGE OF AN INSTITUTION/COMPANY?
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WHAT IS DESIGNERS’ RESPONSIBILITY IN CALLING OUT AGENCY LEADERSHIP TO MAKE CHANGES? AND CAN WE GO BEYOND THAT?
🔗 LINKS
ON THE DEATH OF SINGULAR GENIUS:
“When I was in college, there was ‘the designer as a superstar.’ There was a spotlight on them and they are almost at celebrity level. But because of how accessible information is and how many different people have access to it, the star thing isn’t as relevant. There’s so many designers out there, we don’t have just one star anymore.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“Generally, Western practices of knowledge-making are so obsessed with ‘you are the one that did this’, ‘you are the one with the answers.’ It's entirely antithetical to the reality of literally any form of knowledge production, since there's no one individual person who knows the shit. [Instead] it's the community and context in which they exist, the lineage of thought, the people who’ve brought them there that are the ones co-creating the knowledge.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“This idea of the designer as the author and singular voice is changing. I think all of us have worked in studios named after someone, ‘Mr. Studio.’ And I think this has luckily changed a bit. There are a lot of people involved in a project and I think including everybody who has contributed is super important. [...] What we can really do is credit people and elevate each other.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“I’m frustrated with the institutions of the game, you know, the old gatekeepers of design who have retired from advertising. [...] What are alternative ways of practicing that don't rely on a head of a studio, taking on clients and just extracting value from young people?”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
08.2022
ON SHIFTING AWAY FROM THE UNIVERSAL:
“The question about who designs and for whom is something that is already happening. And I will say positionality is very important right now. Which point of view are you speaking from? You have to position yourself, understanding that there is not just one [right] choice, there will be different ones.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“With more voices, what good design means is changing rapidly. I think that's a really incredible thing that's happening right now. ”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
“Today I think design has become less universal and more personal. We care more about personal taste or interest, and it's more and more divided and plural.”
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
2022
"Growing up in Brazil, I looked up to design figures outside of my own environment as the ones to follow, glorifying European and American designers and undermining my own roots. Ironically I ended up moving to New York and that notion was completely shattered. I quickly realized I had more to offer them than the other way around."
DESIGNER INTERVIEW
08.2022