Designing for Social Change - Social responsibility and the graphic designer.

Abstract: The aim of this thesis is to study social responsibility and find out what responsibilities the graphic designer may have and what they can do using their skill set as a designer to contribute in helping to better their community. Social responsibility needs to be addressed more within the design field. It needs to be introduced and taught to students at an early stage of their education, so as they fully understand the power and influence that their creations will have over society, and the role this plays in materialism, overconsumption and our modern day consumer-culture. Change needs to be made within graphic design and the urgency for this grows more and more for each day that passes. The graphic designer needs to critically reflect over the purpose of their work and answer the question of whom it stands to serve: their audience or consumer-culture. They need to move away from the creation of artificial needs and the promotion of unnecessary products, and move towards the creation of more useful and lasting communication that contributes to society.