Terrorism and Design
‘Evil intent and design responsibility’ is a report by Kemper. He says that the only way us as designers can contribute to combat terrorism is through ‘engineering solutions’. I disagree.
Kemper is right that through designing the right engineering solutions designers can help combat terrorism. This is not the only way to help with the issue of terrorism. Designing things to combat terrorism is not the same as addressing terrorism. We have to think of what terrorsim is and how can we resolve it. I think designing these vehicles and so on is just contributing to terrorism it is not resolving it. It is just a bandaid on the issue. They may win these little battles but they have not won the war on terrorism. We as designers have to make people aware of the issue and make people think about the two sides of the war. Both sides think the other one is getting justice through war and violence. One way of getting people to understand and think about this issue is through marketing of products and designer campaigns. One example of getting people’s attention was that of the Benetton campaign. Bennetton is a clothing company from Italy. They had a few campaigns using the issues of poverty, HIV/AIDS and one which was the most controversial of all and I don’t agree with, was the ‘we on death row’. Anyway they used these issues in the world to draw people to buy their clothes, and it worked. The only problem was that there was no money going to these issues. But if we as designers can get the attention of the public we can make a difference. There are a lot of people out there who don’t understand both sides and can’t seem to compromise or think in a different way. Knowledge is power.
