Design Sojourn

I agree completely that the message should have been more positive. All his points are correct, but I think they turn more designers off. Instead, he could have inspired us, or better yet, given us tangible ways to solve this problem.

The portion of his soap box speech that seems to be missing is the part where he acknowledges that these are the growing pains of a fledgling field. This might have been brilliant if it were a segway into where we ought to be. Design for all intensive purposes is in its infancy. We’re learning to walk. Wait until interaction design becomes completely integrated with industrial design and we’ll start to see some exciting motion.

We create artifacts that are dangerous and bad for the environment not because that is all that is possible. Our processes are worn thin by tight budgets and accelerated time lines. I worked at a major design consultancy and the reason why the Walmarts of the world don’t sign off on green design or that extra bit of safety is because we lack the knowledge to implement them at a cheaper cost. Industry is without conscience it does not care about what is good for the environment it cares about revenue. How can you blame it when that is precisely what it was designed for. In a way our greatest failure has been in not providing the alternatives that are “good” and at the same time cheap. I look to leaders like William McDonough as a sign of things to come.

This should not go without mention that there are certainly people in the industry who are already creating “good” products. I would imagine that the ratio of these designers to the general mass is in the same ball park as the ratio of lazy designers in college to the innovators. It would be naive to think that the entire design community would produce good design ever. The best that you can hope for is to make waves at the top and hope that the middle and bottom follow.

On another note, DT thanks for commenting on my blog. I browsed your work and you get a thumbs up in my book. Night :)

Our processes are worn thin by tight budgets and accelerated time lines. I worked at a major design consultancy and the reason why the Walmarts of the world don

And what Papanek goes on to show in the rest of the book is how you can be a designer that makes the world a better place instead of a designer that makes junk that ends up in landfills.

but aren’t you forgeting something? designers are part of the problem, yes, but also part of the solution! in fact, the problem is not the designers but the companies who contract them for designing crappy products. as designers we have the chance to revert this.

Designers do what consumers want. It is a bit egoistic to think we Designers are some kind of unsung messiahs who can change the world and prevent evils and landfills from happening. We make technology accessible and productive to user, while also making it look good. Every product is the result of constrains, real or perceived, by the design team. Go green initiatives are double edged swords, many a times, they turn out to do more harm than the predecessor, as seen by Ethanol and re-usable diapers fiasco.

yes we produce alot of crap. partly we are to blame and partly we are not. What this excerpt fails to aknowledge is that the poor work from ID is no more of a burden on society than the poor work inherent in any other profession. designers aren’t to blame, neither are managers, marketers or any other profession in general. The problem is the people who do a poor job in their profession.

Hi all,

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and being part of this very good debate.