Thanks Maria for the beautiful picture

There used to be a time where social good would be the pillar of my work. My first year freelancing as a designer, I would work on projects in healthcare, financial management, community and all sorts of social enterprises willing to pay what they could to get design work done.

I felt good working on social projects like these. The money isn’t great, but my heart was fulfilled somewhat. I used the notion of positive impact to fuel myself through late nights, working on extra projects so I can pay my rent and buy myself food in metropolitan Singapore.

This is fine, I said to myself, sipping a coffee while flames of youthful financial ruin slowly started creeping up onto me.

And then, I realised the hard way that it wasn’t.

Everyone should have read this article on Medium by now: Dear Designer: If You Want to Make the World a Better Place, Start With Your Day Job. If you haven’t, give it a read. I don’t have the friend link though so it’ll cost you one premium article this month.

If you don’t want to waste an article, the summary is basically the writer persuading designers to work on ethical initiatives and companies that focuses on social good. As the title suggests, volunteering or doing good does not excuse employees of evil corporations from its evil doings, even when employees and not directly contributing to unethical practices.

So basically if you work at Meta or Google, you are evil*.

*This is just an example and an oversimplification of the situation the article described. Sending kisses to my friends at Instagram and the big G.

The article is a great read. But as always, life just isn’t that simple.

A new follower sent me a message basically asking me this question:

“As a junior designer, which is more important: gaining valuable experience in high-impact environments, or specializing in a specific industry that aligns with your personal values?”

Basically, would you choose to work at a place that gives you a chance to perform, or go somewhere that aligns with your personal…