visual advocacy

right on zeitler! i agree that we should push for the dirty work of advertising to be left to the "pr" people. a designer is not a copywriter or an advertising executive. we need to re-define our job description in this world of multi-tasking-do-it-yourself-ers. i beleive that we have been trained to design - which is essentially a vocational skill, and we are not responsible for the art of persuasion. or are we? i would like to believe that we are only resonsible for the visual elements of our work, but they are so closely linked with the message of the product, and the marketing strategy that we soon find ourselves in the slippery slope of the dangerous "gray area".
even today, as we were struggling to define luxury, it became difficult to differentiate between what was acceptable societal norms, and the extravagant items left for the elite. each of us had a different definition of luxury (based on the items we each described... socks, porche, estate planners, etc...) with the objects varying so greatly, it made me begin to wonder whether or not there is such a thing as luxury. are these things up to the designer to define? or is it the population? and why would we try to promote something as "luxurious" (for instance) if we do not believe ourselves, that it is such an item.