Service is Not Servitude

A great article on AIGA.org from Andy Epstein, the co-founder of InSource, an association dedicated to providing support to in-house designers and design team managers. Andy is also head of an AIGA task force on corporate design, where he continues his efforts to empower in-house teams and raise their stature in the design and business communities.

I heard Andy give two talks this past summer at the HOW Design Conference in Austin, where he spoke about this very subject. At the time, I thought I was the only one facing these situations in the workplace; it was a real eye-opener for me (and a load off my mind) that other designers were facing the same challenges. As the sole member of an in-house design team, I always tried to position myself as being very accessible and available to those around my organization (providing service); but sometimes it felt as though upper managers were taking advantage of my expertise and willingness to help out (pushed into servitude).

A fine line that often gets crossed, Epstein shares that:

“For many in-house design teams, service has come to be perceived as an expletive and not as a valued behavior or mindset… The connotation, in this view, equates the meaning of service with such uses as “cleaning service” or “administrative services”—a decidedly tactical and non-strategic definition. This meaning and perception, of course, is the bane of all in-house designers who are trying to elevate themselves to a more strategic role within their companies. Rather than remain order-takers who are viewed by their clients as mere production artists incapable of functioning as strategic partners with powerful insights, most internal creatives are fighting hard to shed the epithet of “service provider.””

Chances are, if you’re a member of an in-house design team, you’re facing similar challenges. Give Andy’s article a read, and take a look at AIGA’s In-House Design Resources for that matter, too.