In conjunction with the Detroit Design Festival this last weekend, the Detroit chapter of the AIGA announced a poster competition.
Here’s their call for submissions.
…What is design? A universal language? A problem solving tool? Your obsession? This is your opportunity to show the Detroit design community what design means to you. All you have to do is design a poster that fills in the blank: Design is ______________.
I don’t know how many people entered the competition. I’ve spent the past several minutes looking around the web, and, while I was able to find several responses to the question posted on the Detroit Design Festival’s Facebook page, I was only able to find evidence of one poster actually having been submitted. I did, however, come across what I’m assuming was a non-official submission while walking around Detroit this weekend. I found the following plastered onto the side of an abandoned building near the offices of the Heidelberg Project on Saturday, while hopscotching with my daughter.
This message isn’t anything new. I’ve heard it said before, several times, in different ways, in different contexts. For as long as I can remember, for instance, I’ve heard people saying, “Advertising exists in oder to convince people that they desperately need things which they could easily live without.” It only makes sense that someone would extend it from advertising to design. But, I loved the context of this, as it was right outside one of the stops on the Detroit Design Festival itinerary, and thought that I’d share it. As someone who appreciates good design, I don’t know that I agree, but I certainly think it’s worth discussing.
So, is design, like advertising, evil?
[Tonight’s post was brought to you by the new iPhone 5. Order yours today!]
17 Comments
One shouldn’t conflate design with advertising. Clothing, our homes, the tools we work with, and any number of other things that we need to live, all need to be functional. (And it doesn’t hurt if they’re beautiful as well.) While occasionally a cult of design arises, as with the iphone, I think we should be careful to strain the proverbial bath water for babies.
I prefer the Anti Design Festival.
http://www.antidesignfestival.com/disinformation/
Design is about making clear our intentions. It can be used for good or evil. Design isn’t a thing. It’s an act.
Design, like anything but more so, is not inherently good or bad, but functions to the good or bad depending on intent and execution. I’d like to think design, because intent is so weighted and deliberate, is more likely to function for the good. But I’ve seen plenty of evidence to the contrary– especially in the 90’s when the package became more important than the product. I think design is frequently confused with style and fashion — nowhere more so than in the style sections of the Times. As a visual person in the ego-shaming midwest, I often feel a need to defend my love of design and aesthetics as something of value (at least to me). i dont think this would be necessary on either coast. But i also think this questioning has a beneficial impact on design. Some of the best product design comes from the midwest or from midwesterners. (Auto design excluded…) Well designed products avoid excess and fluff– function defines form. Well designed lives do the same.
Design can be truly illuminating when done well.
http://www.spencersonline.com/product/cake-pan/
From a 2001 article in Wired.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.01/designworks.html
Yes, design was a key tool in convincing people to submit to religions they could easily do without.
“As a visual person in the ego-shaming midwest, I often feel a need to defend my love of design and aesthetics as something of value (at least to me). i dont think this would be necessary on either coast.”
D”hurr-d-hurr… derp. Duh, thanks fur cleering that up. We ain’t so bright ’round these parts. Wish I coulda been borned on one o’ them coast things.
I recently read: Emotional Design: why we love (or hate) everyday things.
I recommend it. I’d rather not get into whether design is evil or not, considering I work as a designer for a living. But, that book goes into the behavorial, visceral, and reflective responses to design…and I can appreciate how thorough it is.
http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Design-Love-Everyday-Things/dp/0465051359?linkCode=wsw&tag=bookblog03-20
I’ve heard Obama’s victory in 2008 attributed to design before. I’ll leave it up to you to determine whether that goes in the good column or in the evil column.
Pete: your guitar was designed, wasn’t it?
I reject the notion that good design is only for things that you don’t need.
Case in point.
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/sex-toys-design-conscious-customer-127010
Oh @Brainless, did you read the rest of the post, or just stop at offended? I am a mid=-westerner by choice. Love it here. Think people here are just as smart or more so than any other place. (duh.) I also think people here generally care more about what kind of person they are than the kind of person they appear to be. This is a GOOD thing. I think this humility sometimes leads them to get defensive (and to disparage people trying something new and potentially rad as high-fallutin’). This is not often good(or necessary).
Design is (visual) rhetoric. As rhetoric is intended to persuade, the statement: “Design is the reason you buy crap that you don’t need to live” has an obvious element of truth.
As does the statement, “Words are the reason you buy crap that you don’t need to live.”
Or, “Water is the reason you can’t breathe.”
All true in some contexts. But a painfully small minded portait of full role design and words (or water or any other ubiquitous force) plays in our lives.
The critic managed to marry both words and design quite nicely in his/her critique which is probably why anyone even considers buying his/her <a href="http://aviewfromthemeadow.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/normal_load-o-crap.jpg"crap.
Sorry. I’m learning to add links and wanted a visual: http://aviewfromthemeadow.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/normal_load-o-crap.jpg
To all at the Detroit chapter of the AIGA: “ask a stupid question, get a…”
Congratulations. You did both!
Surely, there must some grand award for that for members.
Design, and even advertising, can be good, and even inspiring. It’s rare though. Here’s a recent example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6zoCDyQSH0o