Citizen Design

Increasing popularity of the internet and web 2.0 has led to an increase in user generated content, which is becoming more popular with consumers. The best example of this would be citizen journalism, citizen journalism is on the rise with the introduction of websites such as twitter and various blog sites. Citizen journalism is not the only job being taken over by the consumers. One variation of the citizen producer is the idea of a citizen designer. A citizen designer is someone who takes the idea of graphic design in to their own hands often designing their own websites, clothing, posters and various other mediums that communicate visually.




Through the introduction of various software's and programs now widely available to anyone with an internet and decent computer, many people are choosing to design their own things, rather than seek out a third party and if they do choose to find help it would be a collaborative effort. Large businesses have also latched onto this idea by holding competitions in which it is up to the participant to design their product or logo and has seen many successful designs become taken up by these companies, consider this joint entrepreneurism.

(source: http://goo.gl/6K4IX7)

(source: http://goo.gl/lbwkG0)

Many business have also started around this, websites such as threadless.com, who allow the user to upload a design to the website and have it voted on and whoever gets the most votes has the design available for purchase and gets a percentage of the profits, with $8,774,411 spread among 1,200 designers. The fact that this website is based on voting and popularity means it can maintain a high quality of design and content, the voting system means that the quality of the work and website does not drop "because of the anonymity of Internet users, however, ensuring information quality or inducing quality content remains a challenge." (Chen, XU & Whinston, 2011). Threadless shows that involving everyone from the people who design to those who purchase ensures that the quality of the designing remains at a high standard.

(source;http://www.threadless.com/product/4542/Space/tab,walls/)

Another facet of the citizen designer can be seen through high school, university and college programs, I'll focus on the highschool program in NSW which is based around the HSC (High School Certificate). There is an elective called Design and Technology and is based around the use of design to create ideas and produce them. Having personally participated in this elective it has set me up for future work in designing. The best designs are then showcased at the powerhouse museum, the process is all documented and a lot of research is carried out. The ability to give aspiring design students to have free reign at a design that can better society and provide them with the technology and knowledge for them to carry this out, sets them up for better quality designs in the future and can only have a positive effect on the consumers and future user generated content.

Participatory culture is becoming more influential and is having a bandwagon effect. People are choosing to create their own ideas and support others who do as well rather than subscribe to substandard mainstream media. Participatory culture and indeed citizen designing is causing waves among media, "participation that could impact the structures and systems of media itself" (Wofford, 2010). With the citizen designer creating works that are becoming increasingly better than what's already out there, there is a certain amount of catching up that is needed by media before they get left behind completely.

References:

Chen, J., Xu, H. and Whinston, A. (2011). Moderated Online Communities and Quality of User-Generated Content. Journal of Management Information Systems, 28.

Wofford, J. (2012). User Generated Content. New Media and Society, 14 (7)