News, Articles and Case Studies

08 Oct 2007

Ethical Design; a moral dilemma

As a web design company, we have clients from a whole range of different businesses. We have been approached by all sorts of companies; some of which we have found to be ethically unsound. Either the line of business is unethical or they have wanted us to do something we don’t agree with, in either case, the client is shown the door.
 
Aside from the obvious moral stance of not wanting to be involved with the project; working with an unethical company will more than likely damage your reputation.
 
Would you work with a client whose product or values you don’t agree with? Where do you draw the line?

Toni

  • http://www.allthingsweb.co.uk Daz

    I draw the line at the size of the cheque…. if its big enough…. huh, what am I saying? I absolutely agree with you about only working with others who are ethical.

    Thing is if YOU don’t do the job then someone else WILL.

    Is it worth turning business away?

    Instead consider giving them a really, really high price to pu them off… if they still want you to do the work then at least you would be highly renumerated…

  • AndyR

    Ethics comes before great design, it comes before everything. Either you have it or you don’t. If you don’t get ethics then I guess you’d be happy designing let’s say an upbeat website for a genocidal megalomaniac…. When you turn down those guys whose ethics don’t accord with your own do you tell them why you don’t want their work or do you fudge around that bit? To be honest I’d probably give a fudged answer, Andy

  • toni

    Tricky one isn’t it? I agree that it is hard to turn the business away but I suppose it comes down to how unethical they are. For example I don’t think I would have a problem with designing tobacco packaging even though I am disapproving of the product (ex smoker sorry). But I would have to draw the line at something that involved arms, child labour or animal cruelty. (still a bit of a hippy deep down). But I don’t think any of these types would approach a ‘nice’ little design agency in Bristol, so we probably wouldn’t ever have to make the choice. But you are quite right that there is always someone out there who will do it. cheers.
    Toni