Ugly on purpose, as the article Mark posted shows, is still cringe-worthy. The first time I was told, "just squish the type to fit," I refused, trying everything else possible first. Following your moral compass in design is a two-edged sword - you may be standing your ground, but you may be losing business and income. In the long run, working with clients you respect is preferable, but its hard to do that before you have a client base strong enough to support making that decision.
So then there are designers who create change, instead of just supporting it. John Bielenberg is a graphic designer who created
Project M. Project M "
has developed projects to help a conservation area in Costa Rica, Micro-financing in Ghana, New Orleans after Katrina, the community of East Baltimore, connecting households to fresh water in Hale County Alabama and addressing the the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Alabama." (cited from the Project M website)
Project M reinforces "thinking wrong," which is designed to allow designers to explore the area of social change, though as it's not easy to do in a professional design capacity, it tends to thrive in academia. The idea is to challenge the status quo, breaking biases, and generating the most potential solutions before choosing one.
I think Van Toorn's argument is very important, and I think aside from designing for things we believe in, we have a responsibility to help educate those who would blindly assimilate into the "existing symbolic and social order."
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