The fact that I haven't posted for a while doesn't mean anything except that I haven't posted for a while. But I think I owe it to you, my loyal reader, to let you in on what I've been doing.
... a little bit at a time though...
About a month or so ago I published book with a very very limited run. If you can find a copy keep it safe. It might be worth something one day. It's called Questions on Design: How to make things work better. The text is reproduced below.*
Chapter 1. Keep them fat and Stupid
Design should fulfil a need. The fulfilment of the need could be the seemingly trivial idea of putting an eraser at the end of a pencil or designing a guidance system for a nuclar device. Design — true design, as opposed to art — should not justify its own existence but should fulfil a need, whether that need is to quickly rub out a drawing, or to potentially erase lives.
We’re being sold a dream of a brave new world, one that we’re continually being compelled to join in or miss out... and who wants to miss out on the future? So, while we wallow in the mud of either useless products or technology with built in obsolescence, the marketeer unveils yet another upgrade. Why are we so eager to snap up the latest one when the last one was doing perfectly well a month ago.
And with the world’s markets opening up everybody wants ‘one’. What ‘one’ is doesn’t matter just as long as it’s got a great sounding name, a great logo and a fantastic marketing campaign behind it.
Is today the world of tomorrow that was predicted so many yesterdays ago or are we sleepwalking into a marketeer’s dreamworld? And is it a place where everything presented to us is wonderful and should be snapped up before it goes out of fashion?
We cannot afford to be complacent, either as consumer or designer. As consumers we have to be wise to the market’s attempt to sell a product that adds no value to our lives, our homes, our work or the world. As designers we must take the responsibility that our work should solve a problem, not create one.
Fulfil a need.
Chapter 2. Guns don't kill people
Look around you. Do it now. What do you see? If what you’re looking at isn’t alive, chances are someone made it. Someone had the bright idea that it should be built that way. They thought about the materials that would be used, thought about what it would look like, and where it might be positioned. They thought about how it might fit in to its environment and how it should be, could be and would be used.
Still looking?
Does it do its job?
Be useful.
Chapter 3. Does democracy work?
HD DVD is no longer with us. It has gone the same way as Digital Compact Cassettes, Laser Discs, and Betamax; technologies that could not survive in the market. Its worth as a product can now never be accurately tested. We will never know how good it might have been because it did not have the financial muscle to survive the fight against Blu Ray.
On the other hand, should the masses decide what is good, what is needed? They may know what works but they may not necessarily know why it works. Should one solution be formulated once every voice is heard? Or should multiple solutions be produced and tailored to individual needs?
Having an abundance of choice is not always a good thing. Too much choice causes paralysis in decision-making, escalates expectations and ultimately results in dissatisfaction when that object inevitably fails to live up to such high expectations. In fact, a Google search for ‘Does Democracy work?’ netted 2,670,000 results in 0.17 seconds. Which result should I use? The first, the last or one of the millions in between.
Ultimately all the masses want is something that works well.
Be functional.
Chapter 4. Seeing the light can blind you
Stone Age, Iron Age, Bronze Age. The Industrial Revolution. The Digital Age. You can’t hold back progress. Evolve or die. Each progression should make us better. So why should we be cautious as we walk into this new era, this world of new technological progress?
Answer the following questions.
Who are the real beneficiaries of that progress? Who controls the progress and what power do they have? Where did they get it from? In whose interests do they use it? To whom are they accountable? And how do we get rid of them?
Make us better.
Chapter 5. Everybody's wrong about the future
We live in a world that’s forever changing. Every day something new is unveiled, a new magazine, a new TV show, a new movie, new fashions, new technology... every one of them hoping to be the next big thing, every one uncertain of their place in the present much less the future.
The only thing certain about the future is its uncertainty.
We look at the present and attempt to predict the future.
In 1970, when we thought about 2010 these didn’t come to mind: A computer in every home, the Internet, mobile phones in every pocket, social networking, Google, Wikipedia. We did, however, think about flying cars, robot servants, colonies in space, global famines and nuclear catastrophe.
Our vision of the future will always be the unatainable and fanciful. The real future creeps up on you naturally selecting the things that deserve to be in it.
Be invisible.
*Please note all references are presented in the published piece's bibliography but just to be sure I'm not breaking any procedures I represent them here, even though some are references to quotes not presented above. 1 Palahniuk, Chuck, 2003, Fight Club, Random House
2 The Prestige (2007) Director Christopher Nolan
3 The Thief of baghdad (1940) Director Michael Powell
4 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias
5 Moore, Alan,1986, Watchmen, DC Comics
6 http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/NussbaumOnDesign/archives/2007/03/are_designers_t.html
2 March 2008
7 http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer. cfm?key=b_schwartz 2 March 2007
8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Benn#In_government_.281964-1970.29
9 McLuhan, Marshall, 1967, The medium is the massage, Gingko Press
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