Why Designers Should Never Be Licensed
10.30.2008 >> Why Designers Should Never be Licensed
posted by Scott Theisen at 09:28 AM
Here is a recent article regarding legislation about professional licensing, specifically ASID...the American Society for Interior Designers. Some states now prohibit honest businesspeople from calling themselves interior designers and instead force them to call themselves interior decorators!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! The state (and the ASID group) apparently know best.
It has interesting parallels for our profession, and I encourage everyone to have a read. I'm hoping this will be controversial, so have at it.
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An MFA graduate of the University of Arizona, Scott has been directing design, branding, identity and naming, interactive, corporate and business-to-business communications with Froeter Design Company since 2000.
Scott has managed strategic design projects for clients such as JP Morgan Chase, Bank One, Molex, Stora Enso, The Smart Museum of Art, and the Chicago Board of Trade. His work has been honored internationally by AR100, Communication Arts, Graphis, the American Association of Museums, CASE, and Print Magazine. Scott also serves on the Advisory Board of the College of DuPage, and Robert Morris College.
He is the only known designer to habitually read Austrian economic theory.
http://www.placeholderconcept.com
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I had this discussion with some Interior Designers and if the impact was some sort of institutional discrimination. When I visited Bolivia one of the major universities is kinda pushing for a similar notion. In that case I really saw a trouble because there inst a strong public university with a good design program and most of the design work comes from designers without a 4 year program education. I can see why there is that necessity to separate the academic with the empirical but hey, that's a great way to create a very ethnocentric expression of what design means for a culture.
On the other hand, interior designers do handle spaces that could potentially could put people in danger if the spaces are not designed properly. This is not to say that a messed up wayfinding system will not kill a bunch of people if it doesn't communicate concisely as a design. (killer graphics) And also with environmental design does is starting to creep in this realm of designing spaces. So I can see both implications. Graphic Design is so loosely defined I don't think we are anywhere near coming to a peaceful consensus.
Great Topic.