In essence this is consumerism – The media tells us we have a problem and provides the answer/solution. [try not to hurl] but think of Lakeland ltd.
We now live in a world where our value is measured by how much we shop, and designs are fuelling this by pumping out needless commodities under the guise of solving some kind of problem.
Design without social responsibility is fuelling our relentless consumerist culture which is destroying the planet and lets face it, negatively affecting our quality of life.
In the Design Council Annual Review they state that “80% of environmental impact of product services and infrastructures is determined at the design stage.” So as designers, we clearly have a responsibility to be questioning, and critical in our approach to all aspects of the design process, not to create unreal problems just for the sake of it.
Consider how many products are not in use six months after being manufactured, we have designed obsolesce, real and perceived. Manufactures design into the product the point at which it will break. This time limit is carefully calculated to be just long enough that the consumer still has faith in the brand and will buy an new one.
Furthermore, our world is becoming extremely automated, we are designing machines to do jobs that lives used to be centred around, creates unemployment, losing livelihood, dependence on robotics. is faster better ? Is this the direction that we want our world to progress in? Are humans a problem that needs to be solved?
To quote Bill Buxton: “To be effective we must shift our focus from the techno-centric to the human centric”
Eevn Technological evolution is self-perpetuating – we're merely exploring the potential of technology, the current example being the prevalence of the touch-screen. We laud it up without even thinking is this holistic to the way we live and is it really the best thing? surely we shouldn't ever have to drastically change our lifestyles and learn entirely new behaviours to suit these technologies?
How are these emerging technologies going to mess with our social, moral, political, economical conventions? how will we manage their life cycles ?- Connected appliances, smart materials, pervasive computing.
Having argued that design is a problem CREATING activity, it needs to be said that design is also so much more than a problem solving activity in the first instance.
Design is Aesthetic – Henry Ford once said that: “We demand beauty with our utility, beauty with out amusement, beauty with the things with which we live.”. If design was merely problem solving, there would be no variation
Design is Identity, Culture and Expression: the ‘freedom’ to choose how you look and behave, how you externally present yourself to others.
Design Communicates Ideas: projecting your ideas into the world through objects
Design is Questioning and provocative: an example being ‘Buildings of Disaster’ by Boym,: a collection of souvenirs devoted to tragedy, such as 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombing (Another example being Ted Noten’s Lady K gun handbags for Prada where a handgun is shown through the side of a bag)
Design Creates meaning and shapes relationships: communicating something intangible such as wind or time.
Design is Conceptual: conveys new futures, ideologies and possibilities
Design is Critical: it can engage and comment on the current state of design itself
Design is a Tool for exploration and research: it investigates the world we live in and it’s complexities to reveal the nature of what exists from what is observed.
Design is Experimentation: it experiments with what is variable and what could be changed, it creates possibilities that nobody has thought of and would have considered without rhetorical interventions.
design is daily : everyone designs for their own personal efficiency, through creating routines and creating new uses for existing objects.
Design is Accidental: Cornflakes were created by mistake!
Design is Fun and entertainment: design can be purely for enjoyment, such as the novelty, gaming industry, theme parks, casinos, sex,
Design is Art.- Do we dare go there?
Design is Social mobility ?
Design is Activism ?
Design is Pollution ?
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