Gordon Kaye has been editor and publisher of GDUSA (Graphic Design USA) for more than three decades. He is a graduate of Hamilton College, Princeton University’s SPIA, and Columbia Law School. This comment, connected to our annual responsible designers report and our 2024 health and wellness design awards competition and showcase, first appeared in the October 2024 print and digital magazines. He is shown here with Website + Social Media Editor Sasha Kaye-Walsh, herself a Hamilton graduate and Rutgers University MFA. GDUSA is celebrating its 61st year of publication as a news and information source for the graphic design and related creative community.
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The genesis of our ‘Socially Responsible Designers’ annual feature was a phone call from a prescient paper mill executive some 35 years ago asking if I knew to what the word “sustainable” referred. Always a step behind, I did not know — never heard of it — though in fairness neither did anyone else outside academia and a few activists. Soon thereafter, I learned that a handful of graphic designers were asserting their sense of responsibility to society and the planet by buying and specifying recycled papers and soy inks. And thus the progenitor to today’s annual feature was born. ‘Designing With Recycled Papers’ begat ‘Green Designers’ which begat ‘Sustainably Responsible Designers’ which begat ‘Socially Responsible Designers’ — which has now evolved into, simply, ‘Responsible Designers.’ (Next year, who knows!)
With each renaming and reimagining, the scope has become broader and the circle wider to keep pace with the creative community’s ever-expanding definition of “responsible” design; with the ever-deepening commitment to designing for good in order to make the world better for people and nature; and with the epiphany that graphic design is an exquisitely effective discipline, talent and tool to communicate the message.
In 2024, the topics that our cohort of “Responsible Designers” care about and seek to advance extend far beyond what we could conceive those many decades ago. As you will see, these include herein: accessibility, female leadership and empowerment, health and wellness, urban and neighborhood redevelopment, small business and entrepreneurial promotion, LGBTQ rights, DEI initiatiatives, domestic violence and sexual assault, racial and gender and income equality, support for arts and education, philanthropy and religion, design ethics and data privacy and AI, a bit of partisan politics and, yes, world peace. Sustainability still matters, of course — climate change concerns and environmental activism abound — nestled comfortably within this broader ethos.
The range of issues at play are encyclopedic, but there is a common denominator. Each of these creative leaders cites a desire to break through the noise. To get to the heart of the matter. To communicate urgency. To effect and shape change — now — in a way that smart and deliberate graphic design is uniquely suited to do. Please join us in celebrating their exciting and meaningful work.
— GK
2024 HEALTH+WELLNESS AWARDS SHOWCASE
Our annual Health+Wellness Awards competition recognizes graphic design excellence in a transcendently important and ever-expanding segment of our economy and society. This year’s competition is large and selective, with winners chosen from a broad array of design firms, creative agencies, and inhouse and institutional departments. Honored projects run the gamut from traditional medicine and healthcare to healthy lifestyles and personal wellness to public and community health initiatives. How healthcare is resourced, distributed and delivered has been an epicenter of national conversation for decades and, if anything, this Presidential election year has sharpened the debate. As we move into an uncharted post-pandemic era, the creative work represented in this very select showcase reaffirms that engaging, effective, informative and impactful graphic communications can make a meaningful difference in education, prevention, access, delivery and outcomes. We hope that this yearly exercise makes a small contribution to the conversation about what it means to be a healthy and well society — but we know for sure that exceptional visual communicators like those represented here are driving the discussion forward.
— SKW
THE PAST IS NOT DEAD. IT IS NOT EVEN PAST
— William Faulkner
I am old enough to remember that magazine editors used to enjoy perks — if not quite at the level of the current Mayor of New York City, then at least an occasional press junket, mill tour, cocktail party, Yankee tickets, free products, gift boxes of food, wine or candy. But the times are less frothy in magazine-land, and an occasional complimentary hard copy book sent for review is a high point.
Which is a long way around to saying that I experienced a jolt of pleasure recently when presented with a review copy of Graphic Classics, a large and lavish visual survey of graphic design history as told through 500 iconic projects over 700 years. The gesture by publisher Phaidon was welcomed, and perusing the contents reminded me how very important it is for present day practitioners and students to understand and appreciate design history — how it connects past, present and future and makes some sense of it all. Today’s graphic designers, a book like this reminds us, stand on the shoulders of giants.
I worry that the debt owed to the past is being forgotten. During GDUSA’s 50th anniversary year — 2013 — we conducted a massive reader survey that revealed our community’s deep knowledge of the pantheon of great designers, the iconic symbols, the seminal works. In 2024 not so much. Our recent attempts to probe these matters suggests low information and even less interest. Maybe design heroes and singular projects seem anachronistic in an increasingly diverse, democratized and fragmented media age. Maybe young graphic designers are entering the field ignorant or arrogant. Maybe I am not asking the right questions, The truth is probably somewhere between, but no matter how you slice it, the past is being devalued.
Before there was Graphic Classics, there was Meggs’ History of Graphic Design. The latter book is straightforward, comprehensive, definitive, the standard — I slept with it by my side for years. In the introduction to the first edition, Philip B. Meggs observed: “This chronicle of graphic design is written in the belief that if we understand the past, we will be better able to continue a culture legacy of beautiful form and effective communication.” Meggs’ message was always clear and consinstent: by inculcating design history you gain a foundation upon which to build upon and leverage the wisdom of those who came before.
Something important is being lost and I’m not referring (only) to perks.
— GK
