Abstract
Designers are increasingly becoming involved in areas that were once considered silos. From healthcare to technology and government, designers are shared custodians for addressing large-scale, complex problems. With this shift towards more interdisciplinary work and blurred boundaries between fields, a designer's role takes many forms. As we navigate the landscapes of interdisciplinary practice and confront issues that affect our society and planet unprecedentedly, the responsibility to act ethically primarily rests on the individual. Without general, agreed-upon ethical guidelines, like the Hippocratic oath for doctors, we explore ways to establish shared values for the design community. Drawing from design justice and community-oriented design practices, we use the metaphor of a ‘mobile,’ an artistic sculpture comprising delicate components suspended in the air and moving in response to air currents or motor power to spark our imagination and discover ways to adapt, prioritize, and balance the tensions between our values and our practice.
Keywords
design ethics, design values, design practice, pedagogical frameworks, metaphorical thinking
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.61
Citation
Narayanan, A., Lathrop, A.,and Vaqueiro, L.(2025) A Designer’s Ethic: An Art in Balance, in Brandt, E., Markussen, T., Berglund, E., Julier, G., Linde, P. (eds.), Nordes 2025: Relational Design, 6-8 August, Oslo, Norway. https://doi.org/10.21606/nordes.2025.61
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Exploratory Papers
Included in
A Designer’s Ethic: An Art in Balance
Designers are increasingly becoming involved in areas that were once considered silos. From healthcare to technology and government, designers are shared custodians for addressing large-scale, complex problems. With this shift towards more interdisciplinary work and blurred boundaries between fields, a designer's role takes many forms. As we navigate the landscapes of interdisciplinary practice and confront issues that affect our society and planet unprecedentedly, the responsibility to act ethically primarily rests on the individual. Without general, agreed-upon ethical guidelines, like the Hippocratic oath for doctors, we explore ways to establish shared values for the design community. Drawing from design justice and community-oriented design practices, we use the metaphor of a ‘mobile,’ an artistic sculpture comprising delicate components suspended in the air and moving in response to air currents or motor power to spark our imagination and discover ways to adapt, prioritize, and balance the tensions between our values and our practice.