Ethics Assignment 1

According to AIGA’s Design and Business Ethics “A professional designer adheres to principles of integrity that demonstrate respect for the profession, for colleagues, for clients, for audiences or consumers, and for society as a whole.”

Design ethics are establish responsibilities and behaviors that are acceptable to the profession and the clients. Designers have establish responsibilities to both themselves and the client. Some include but are not limited to authorship, responsibility to the public and to the society. Unethical design brings down the moral of the professions representation.

The organization I am currently interning for is called Women’s Collective Press. Women’s Press Collective is a non profit that focus on economic, women a children related political issues in New York City. Women’s Press Collective is all about giving a voice to the people within our communities in NYC. Due to sponsored content many political and socio-economic issues are not shown within the media that we consume daily. WPC uses print and design to bring those issues to the forefront. I am an intern at Women’s Press Collective, it is unpaid and volunteer work. My work as an intern at WPC consist of design and printing assistance. I attend both the design sessions and print sessions held every weekend at WPC’s Bronx location. I love being apart of the organization, I am very interested in print and women’s issues. As a design intern at this organization I am able to be hands on when it comes to designing projects for events and information. Most of the content is given including the organizations logo and trademarks. We are not to alter them in any way.

I did not have to sign a non disclosure agreement when obtaining the internship, it is essential that I continue to practice design ethics exposing any information that is not meant for public record. Non disclosure agreements are a set of rules about sharing the companies information. If you contract is violated a person can be sued and held liable for breach of contract. This helps companies keep ownership of projects and data and prevent any stealing of information. Whether a confidentiality agreement is signed or not it is important to continue to follow the guidelines of design to ensure ethical design and professionalism.