Soleful Design

No, that's not a typo. I've just finished reading through Kenneth Cole's monogram, Footnotes. I must say that he's done more with fashion design than I ever thought possible. You can tell from the subtitle, "What you stand for is more important than what you stand in," that he's not going to be talking about the latest Spring colors or how to select a trendy wardrobe. This book is about substance over style. He recounts the company's entrepreneurial beginnings and examines the "unlikely marriage between social responsibility and the business of fashion." From the first chapter, "Why Fashion Is Not Important," to the end of the book, Cole offers some interesting insights on the connection between design and society. Could any type of design work appear more fleeting? Cole admits it. "I spend a major part of my waking hours making things that no one needs. After all, fashion is just clothes, just shoes—fashion doesn't really change the world." And he expresses so well the thoughts we all have when a client wants to produce another brochure for widget x or service y: "Fashion alone is not enough of a reason to get up in the morning. It's certainly not a reason to leave my wife and kids to go to work every day for long hours, and to ask my associates for the required spirit to do the same. If what we do is only about fashion, I don't believe that the collective energy of our success can be sustained." My feelings exactly.

I think if we were honest, we could substitute "art" or "design" or "football" or "banking" for the word fashion. So, do we just give up our profession and go into "the ministry"? Maybe Cole offers some clues. Cole responded to this soleful dilemma by developing an advertising philosophy that both promotes his products and raises the public's awareness about important social issues. Granted, I don't come down on the same side of the fence as Cole on these issues, but I do think he's addressing and shaping areas in culture where we as Christians have let our voice become silent.

Shouldn't we be doing the same in our design work or our business, but from an Christian perspective? I'm not talking about taking up causes for the sake of generating business. Nor am I suggesting issues based design for or against some cause. I'm talking about speaking Life and Truth into an ever darkening culture though design. If Kenneth Cole can shape culture through fashion design, why can't we with other forms of design? What would this look like? Is anyone out there doing it in a way that's not religious? Bueller? Bueller?