Disobeying the law in the name of creativity

A legal proposal intends to change the rules of the design game there where the only one having the judging right is the consumer.

Marius Ursache is a founder and designer (a practitioner, as he insists on calling himself) by one of the most highly appreciated local design agency, Grapefruit Design. It was not easy for him to come all this way and his own. He already has won several national and international prizes. A successful designer, one may say. But he has one little ‘problem’: he is a Medicine graduate. Apparently no contradiction. In this job that he chose for himself all that has mattered so far has been personal skill and passion. This until recently, when the Romanian Organization of Professional Designers (SDPR) published on its site a legal initiative aiming at regulating the designer profession. If one liked history and remembers the guild organization one will surely understand this initiative. A professional organization founded by the Plastic Artists’ Union (UAP) SDPR thought of developing and enforcing local design. Excellent idea! Finally one initiative for the benefit of Romanian design. This legislative proposal has already been notified to the members of the Organization but it proved to be controversial right from the beginning. According to the majority of the practitioner designers the problem is that this legislative project compels the designers to have Romanian citizenship, to be design graduates and SDPR members, to own a designer license as well as signature right, to pay a certain fee, etc. Elena Sinca, a graduate designer by Best Before Design Agency also senses ‘the bureaucracy and frustration’ round this project, while Cristian ‘Kit’ Paul, a designer and Creative Partner by Brandient, a company dedicated to brand consulting and design, describes this project as ‘aberrant and noxious on the spirit’.

A PERFECTIBLE PROJECT

Dinu Dumbraviceanu, a SDPR member, says that this initiative may be changed: ‘I don’t see it necessary as it is now, since I fail to see how it may protect me as a designer or how it may lead to the improvement of Romanian design’. On the other hand, Gabriel Cojoc, another SDPR member, claims that this law project is necessary since it regulates this field and gives the graduates the chance to lawfully bear the title of designer. ‘This project does not exclude the possibility of certain designers having proved their professionalism to be granted the designer title following certain necessary formalities’, stated Cojoc for Business Week Romania. There is no way that SDPR could have inspired from abroad when conceiving this law project, because nowhere else have there been any similar cases. For example, in the USA there is one organization called ‘Graphic Designers Guild’ strictly based on professional concepts and not on legal ones. Many Romanian designers would agree to the existence of such a local organization set up based on the model and the aims of the American one. One of them is Bogdan Branzas, a founder, design director and CEO by Branzas Branding and Design Agency. ‘Who wants and affords to buy a Mercedes will surely do it, who doesn’t will stay to a simple 20 year old Dacia and that explains not by a law but by the mechanisms of offer and demand and the fame’, he stated for Business Week Romania. ‘Kit’ by Brandient is even more straight: ‘Professionals’ freedom of association must stay free of any type of monopole. Reputation must come from free competition and clients’ appreciation, not from the stamp of one group of interests. We must not put creativity outside the law!’ Some of the professionals of this market, as contacted by Business Week Romania, unanimously opinioned that this law project is typically Romanian, meant to obstruct the competitive mechanisms of the design industry, a developing field, as we all know, still small and lacking involvement.