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The Use and Abuse of Stereotype in Design

Introduction

The graphic design community gives a lot of thought to the ideas of branding and image presentation. Since most designers have only a single page or website splash to both capture the interest of an audience and explain what a site is about, there has developed a sort of shorthand in the way people represent culture. Unfortunately, this cultural shorthand is often based on stereotypes established by the group that produces the highest percentage of graphic designers (Bennett, p.209). People think of stereotyping in a pejorative way because many of what we call “stereotypes” portrays particular groups of people in one-dimensional and degrading ways, robbing them of their humanity. Here in this paper we will discuss the use and abuse of stereotype in graphic design.

Discussion

The way people present themselves online is very important, because first impressions are always very important. It is important to know that a graphic designer has a very small amount of time to grab an audience; therefore the design needs to be sharp, interesting, and unique. It also needs to convey everything the graphic designer is trying to say without being too overdone or tacky. When designing, and especially in creating original artwork, the designer has to think about the image that is being presented (Meggs, p.116). For example, in creating a website or logo for an automotive service company, the designer has to think of a way to accurately and creatively represent the company without claiming things they cannot produce. There are even laws about it. “False advertising” is a crime punishable by the FCC with extensive fines or jail time.

However, by using stereotypically urban images, a graphic designer can appear to be anyone. Not only does this raise ethical issues about the use of stereotypes, it also brings up the idea of lying. Maybe the image the designer wants to present to the public is a hip, edgy, city based art house. That's fine, if the designer actually a hip, edgy city-based art house. By essentially lying about what kind of company a graphic designer presents to the public, this can reinforce the idea that stereotypes can be considered representative of entire groups and cultural ideas (Meggs, p.111). Until stereotypes are no longer used to mean things that could be more easily and better conveyed in a positive manner, there is really no ethical basis for using stereotypical images to give character to a design.

This raises, like all other gratuitous abuse of stereotypes, a serious ethical concern. For instance in an advertisement some women are publicized as moms who play hockey are supermoms. These women may very well not have been hockey moms. They could have been lawyers or doctors or teachers, or moms of any other sport, who decided to take time out of their schedules to become a supermom. This image is not particularly flattering to sports-based moms or most moms in general. It implies that they are overworked, untalented, ...