The extracts come from an article called, “A Designer's Code of Ethics” written by Mike Monteiro in 2017 on Medium. A platform where anyone can share their opinions and views on anything and write their own stories. Their goal is “to deepen our collective understanding of the world through the power of writing” (Ref:https://medium.com/about). The writers include people from all walks of life including CEOs, computer scientists, presidents, novelists and anyone who wants to post and share what they have learned as well as help others to discover new things or revamp something old.
The writer Mike Monteiro is a co-founder and design director of “Mule Design”. Mule Design is a studio with over 20 years of experience in the design industry. The team aims to give advice on brainstorming ideas, tips for introverts who have trouble working in the design industry, for those who believe they won't succeed, those who feel the emotion of anxiety and teaching how the design research process works.
Mike likes elegant and simple websites that are legible and serve needs. He delivered talks about how designers should mind their own business and need to bear social responsibility. He also wrote books about handling yourself professionally as a designer (Ref:Design is a Job.), client and designer relationship, how to find good designers as well as collaborate with them. (Ref:You're My Favourite Client.)
In my view, designers should know their code of ethics. However, the article gave me a new perspective that designers can be so much more powerful, e.g. “you can either help or hurt them with your actions”, “you are responsible for what you put into the world” and “we cannot be surprised when a gun we designed kills someone”.
“There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few of them.”