I don’t see how anyone can separate your actions from your morals. I will never accept the concept that when it comes to business, morals don’t count.

That said, there are some complexities to this issue.

1) The choices are much more difficult if you work for someone else. But even then you have to draw the line somewhere.

2) Obviously, everyone has their own concept of what is right and what is moral. So the decisions will be different. Someone commented that he or she would never create a website for a church. That would not be my decision, but it may be the right decision for that person. We have to respect other people’s values.

3) A bigger issue for me, as a blogger, is that most issues are not black and white. I enjoy following politics and would like to express my opinions, but I never agree totally with either side. Right now, I would really like to tell people in my own party what they are doing wrong. I am afraid that if I started a lot of political posts, I would get responses (or responses to other people’s responses) from people who are rabid and full of hate. Of course, I can moderate posts, but that even that arises moral issues. I am not sure what I will decide about this.

But, this time, one of our major clients (who is a web developer who uses our firms skills) with whom makes up 90% of our work, came to us with a project for a group which I completely disagree with. I did not want to seem like not a “team player” if I declined, and I was scared that this client would not bring more design work. I love the fact that this client brings the design work while he handles the clients (sometimes my not-favorite part of what we do). After much debate with myself, I had to listen to my conscience and decline the work since I knew that my mental block would leave me unable to do the work justice (ironic-huh?) and I did not want to produce work that my client would be embarrassed of, and ultimately did not want him to be disappointed in my work and question my abilities! (Can you imagine making the logo for a group you absolutely detest, knowing they will be using it on all their branding, bumper stickers, signs, promo materials…ugh!!!) Talk about a Catch-22! Either I take the work and suffer through the mental anguish, shame and guilt and produce a product that could only come out crappy (sorry – I am emotional and I design from my head and heart) and let the project suffer and fail, or, I turn down the work and potentially put off a good client. Seems the first scenario is worse. I can always find more work, right? (>_<)

Finally, I had to face it that I couldn't do it, and the problem became how to let this guy down. Asking for advice from my sister, a writer, gave me some good ideas. She said to just keep your excuse as general as possible and let him know that I have certain boundaries that I cannot cross, and give a list of the types of sites I wold not, in all conscience, do. Political, religious, weapons-related, etc., so as to not reveal, necessarily, that I was in direct opposition to the project's group. I feared that my client may have even been a member of this group and did not want to reveal my opposition – and leave him with contrary feelings about me, too..

So, by biting the bullet and saying no, I felt I was saving the project, my client's reputation (by not producing work not completely at top notch), and my conscience. The only thing, I haven't heard back from my client and now I'm fearing losing his business. (He is generally non-communicative – so I hope he's just busy finding another designer.) Hopefully, he will understand and if he does come back with future work, at least he'll know which kinds of projects to avoid giving me. *Fingers crossed*

Will update if I get a response.

Good on you for bringing this up, the web can be a very murky place to work in in terms of morality but I definitely beleive in having a beleive or at least not morally objecting to products/services you help to promote (whatever industry you are in).

The only perceivable reason people might do this is if they are hard up for money or being offered large amounts of money, NOT WORTH it either way, for every dodgy job, there 50 good ones out there. Stick to your guns if you have reservations becuase those feeling are only likely to get worse if you proceed.

Very interesting article. First time I encountered such topic. Kudos!!

I’ve been thinking about this recently because I’ve been involved with a project that is tangentially related to the online gambling industry. It really doesn’t bother me, but I can see how some people might not want to be connected to that industry. While it’s never come up, I think I would take on a porn client, but it would depend on the project. I also think I’d work on political websites, whether I support the candidate/party or not. I support the adoption of better web presences for politicians on an ideological level, so it wouldn’t matter which party I was working for because on some level I would be benefiting.

But I don’t think I would work with anti-abortion or anti-gay clients (and writing this down right now will help ensure that it never comes up). But mainly because I just don’t think I could interact with that type of client.

I think the rule that if you wouldn’t want it on your portfolio, you shouldn’t work on it applies really well here. If you would never show others that you’ve worked on a porn site, maybe you shouldn’t work on it.