If you or your friends are young or freshly graduated designers from the industrial, architectural and urban sectors, you probably know that design labour is often undervalued and underpaid. Design jobs are heavily time- and energy-consuming, yet poorly rewarding in terms of economic compensation. This takes a huge toll on entire generations of anonymous individuals whose aspirations are reduced into the struggle of coping within a market that seems to reject their knowledge, and sometimes even their presence. Looking for ways to address such an issue, you will most probably find yourself fighting against institutions and their bureaucratic tools exerted to either simply not acknowledge the need to take care of you or have no power to do so. Now tell me, coming back home every day after work knowing this, under the urge to vent which usually comes with strong anger and frustration, what is the thing that feels the most natural to you to do besides, obviously: going on a rant?
hi there!
i hope this comic finds you well,
so, we wanted to raise the issue of underpaid design jobs, which is particularly relevant amoung us young workers and fresh graduates
simply because every time we speak to a friend who’s working in the design industry they are struggling with a precarious economic condition
we came up with this idea of addressing a complaint in a letter to an appropriate institution
so i contextualised my research in Italy for a matter of proximity, identifying the National Council of Architects as the receiver of the invective
then i had a conversation with someone i know who has experience in the field (this is a super short extract of it)
after the conversation i realised that sending a letter to the order of the architects was pointless
what could be done? addressing the ministry of economics in such a historical moment?! while other categories of workers are struggling every day because they’re not even allowed to do their jobs?!
didn’t really feel right…especially because currently there are more important matters to fight for
so what can a young architect do to express their frustration towards the industry and the system???
i could literally go on forever but i need to go back to my underpaid job sorry
at least it felt good to get it off my chest
author
This is a contribution by a projektado member, supported by open collective discussions and feedback from the rest of the projektado collective. The decision to not individually name the authors is to take clear distance from the overwhelming presence of individualistic and self- serving practices in design today, and instead focus on the role of collective action and shared values.
Whilst we maintain at times contrasting individual and personal opinions, styles and approaches, we all understand that our production is part of a discussion we share and that is motivated by a collective goal, and that therefore, we all feel represented by.
first published for projektado magazine issue 1: anonymity in design / may 2021
