Andy Rutledge doth dissent too much, methinks.

Andy Rutledge, a designer and prolific writer on design and the design industry, made a few waves recently with his proposed redesign of USA.gov under an Obama administration, and subsequent essay critiquing both those who criticized his original post and the silencing of conservative voices in the field of design in general.

I'd like to talk about both essays in turn. First, the original post itself and its resulting reactions.

Avant Garde Meets The Vanguard?

Rutledge is certainly right that USA.gov desperately needs the touch of a designer. I'm not a visceral hater of "design by committee" as many others are, but USA.gov has indeed been committeed to death. But this wasn't simply a redesign to make things look better, or to make the site match Obama's distinctive design style. He jumps back and forth between describing his proposed design changes and Obama's supposed socialist/communist political ideas:

I have done away with some of the unnecessary navigational elements in the header area and have made certain link groupings into more concise elements. For instance, all searching is accomplished with the elements in the upper-right of the page. The main search element has been made more usable and clear by the use of more whitespace around it and an improved interface.

Main Content

I did not apply any significant redesign to the structure of the main content, but I did add some contextually appropriate content elements. In keeping with Obama’s idiom, most of the changes have been accomplished through stylistic means. However, it is the nature of the content that has received significant redirection.

With a new Socialist direction for our government under a President Obama, the main page for the US government should be realigned to account for how our government serves us and what it should communicate to us. We will have new services availed to us and new priorities will typify the government’s efforts.

It's actually a quite funny read, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself until I reached the conclusion. I read the final three paragraphs with a slowly dropping jaw, thinking to myself good lord, he actually believes this stuff. You should really read the entire conclusion; to avoid excessive blockquoting, here's the juiciest bit:

Barack Obama and his Democrat [sic!] Party contemporaries represent change—the same sort of change promised by Marx, Lenin, De Leon, Debs, Trotsky, Chavez, and others[...]

And the greatest nation in the history of mankind will cease to exist, to eventually be replaced by yet another Leftist Fascist dictatorship.

And it was at this point I began to understand the rather unrefined responses this piece elicited by other designers (he chronicles the more profane of them at the bottom of his original post). Andy, people flipped out over your post not because it expressed conservative sentiments, but because it expressed ridiculous and patently false sentiments.

As someone who never misses an opportunity to criticize Obama for not being further to the left, I can guarantee you that it's unrealistic to think Obama will drive government noticeably further to the left than Bill Clinton did. We'd need a President Kucinich or President Sanders (Bernie, not Colonel) for the country to go even remotely near what your apocalyptic vision of an Obama presidency presages. Look at Obama's economic advisers - people like Rob Rubin and Warren Buffet. These are a far cry from any wild-eyed revolutionaries. Do you think, like Ronald Reagan's secret calls to his personal psychic, that Obama would have private late night powwows with folks like Hu Jintao, Hugo Chavez, and Prachanda? I'm not a Marxist-Leninist, but if you're worried about Obama being a closet member of that sect, talk to some actual Marxist-Leninists.

You make extraordinary claims about Barack Obama. As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

This is just a guess, but it really seems like you changed the goal of your original essay midway through writing it. The concluding paragraphs add nothing to the presentation of your redesign; conversely, redesigning the USA.gov site is a poor vehicle for expressing a political claim both that is 1) outside mainstream political discourse and 2) something you expect people to react to seriously. If you serve out hyperbole, it's a given that you'll get some in return.

The Saccharine Bite of the Liberal Designer/"Activist"

I actually do agree with a large part of Rutledge's companion piece, The Design of (the wrong sort of) Dissent. For example:

So tell me again: in what way is Leftist design dissent courageous? And how is it in any way speaking truth to power? It’s not. It’s simply the cliché repetition of mantra to the in-crowd. Courage plays no part in it. A designer who creates a Left-centric, anti-conservative design message is doing nothing more than the requisite ritual of euphemistically “donning the uniform” to show the rest of the designers, “see, I’m just like all of you!” Courageous? Hardly.
[...]
Leftist designers have been “dissenting” in the safe cocoon of their monochrome clique for so long that they’ve apparently forgotten what dissent is.

I think liberal designers pat themselves on the back far too much for doing far too little. "Oh look, another anti-Bush poster! How daring! And neat, you're using a gas pump as a gun! What incisive metaphor! Gasp, you're using rows of generic male symbols from bathroom signs to indicate conformity and consumerism!"

Rutledge is right (no pun intended): when the whole of the design community (or at least all its mandarins) stand up and applaud something, it's no longer dissent.

For the sake of clarity, perhaps we should distinguish dissent within the design world and dissent within the whole of society. An anti-war poster is more likely to be considered dissent to the politically heterogeneous outside world than within a largely liberal design community (of course, the question is then begged: do a sizable number of non-designers ever even see the poster?). But this distinction doesn't undermine Rutledge's criticism of such work being considered courageous when its designers risk neither comfort nor esteem.

I think the graphic design community needs more genuine dissent, aimed both at the real world and squarely at itself. And while I don't agree with it, intelligent dissent from a conservative perspective can only enliven and enrich debate. Unfortunately Rutledge reaches a bit too far in two respects:

1. When he claims "apparently, the rules dictate that Conservative dissent is to be met with vitriolic and profane denouncements," and gives by way of example 1) unintelligent dissent (his USA.gov piece), and 2) responses from other designers via that #1 medium for unrefined communication, Twitter. Why not get permission to reprint some of the emails received?

2. When he makes a blanket claim at the very beginning of the essay:

   "Not a single designer who expresses Leftist political dissent is in danger of anything more than trumpeted support from his peers because of it. No designer who expresses Leftist political dissent is in any danger of being ostracized by the members or administration of any design organization, or by fellow students, or by design school professors."

   I can think of lots of leftist political dissent that would make enemies among other designers, especially those most critical to your well-being. Here's two.

   One could lambaste design firms for being top-down, hierarchical, and exemplary capitalist institutions that replicate the worst, anti-social aspects of our current society, and push for the transformation of design firms into democratically-organized, non-hierarchical organizations. (Though let's be honest, it wouldn't take something that far left. You'll get in trouble -- and probably get fired -- just for trying to organize a basic union.)

   A student could criticize her design professors for presenting design as a value-neutral trade, for assigning a hopelessly-biased numerical rating (a grade) to each design project, and for not preparing design students for independent work after graduation (as they presently prepare them to continue what amounts to apprenticeship in a large firm).

Toward Better Conversations

To the extent to which one could call discussion around the "designer-citizen" a discourse, it's a very shallow one that hasn't progressed much further than directives like the rudimentary "do pro bono work for causes you believe in" and the ever-hedging "don't take jobs for clients you fundamentally disagree with, unless you really need the money." It's specifically that discussion I wish to use this blog to help deepen and expand a bit, and I'm glad that parts of his essay tell me that Andy is interested in such an ongoing conversation as well.

UPDATE: I just discovered that Matthew Pennell has a reply to Rutledge's essays, though coming from a different (although complementary) angle.