Citizen Designer...

When I began my dissertation which was entitled "Are controversial techniques necessary in advertising in order to successfully raise awareness of a social message or a product?" I started regretting my choice of subject! As interested as I am in this particular topic there was one main problem that confronted me. It had not occurred to me that studying a topic where new examples were constantly being broadcast limited the amount of reading material that was accessible to me. The majority of information was contained within newspaper articles and I was really struggling to find books to help me with my research.

My tutor recommended me 'Citizen Designer' by Stephen Heller. Having read a write up for it online I was sceptical of how useful it would actually be...oh how wrong I was! It addressed the problems with advertising and communicative design as well as analysing problems with campaigns and designers.

"Most designers, I believe, would agree that design has an important social role, and that design practice should be anchored in the very reality of its social consequences."

Heller, S, 2003.

I would definately recommend this book to anyone who is interested in controversial campaigns and the thoughts behind them. I suggested that a friend should read it for her dissertation even though it was on a completely different subject and she found it equally as useful! I think this is definately one to keep!