At Your Service?

From aesthetics and utility to sustainability and value, the intentions of most designers are too often distorted through the presumptions they hold around what they're supposed to be providing and to whom they're providing it. Rather than a group of practitioners in the service of industry, designers need to see themselves as connective tissue—translating between stakeholders, reframing problems, revealing opportunities and championing change. It is through scale that they wield their might and earn their keep, and that's what makes them both powerful and dangerous. In this video from the 2011 AIGA Design Conference in Phoenix, Allan Chochinov argues that while design is now seen as a strategic global resource, enabling innovative brands and companies to compete more effectively, there has to be more to it than that.