Design 21: Social Design Network

Hi David,

I read your report and I answered to it on my blog. It would be definetely interesting to discuss on the topic. I think it is highly interesting.

I started a discussion here at DESIGN 21.

All the best, Marco

Dear Communitiy Members!

I would like to start a discussion on the latest David Report that is trying to find out a way to a better consumer behaviour for the future. You can find David Carlson's report here:.

I already reacted on the report in my blog. We could go on discussing it here. I would like to know what others think about the future of consumerism.

Thanks and all the best,

Marco

ROGER, the young designmagazine is preparing its next issue. The title is »Hidden and Sought« and deals with the invisibility of design.

You'll probably know the book of Lucius Burckhardt where he explains his idea of the invisible structures that influence people and are so a kind of design. Also Burckhardt used the term »Design for Conviviality« - design that allows and advances community.

Our non-profit ROGER (I am one of the people behind it) is looking for projects that work with the invisibilty of design - wether it's surveillance cameras, service designs, nanotechnology design... the possibilities are broad! As the seperation of design into disciplines like graphic, industrial or whatever design, action from all fields is welcome!

Kalle Lasn, founder of the famous Adbusters magazine and author of books such as »Culture Jam« and »Design Anarchy« has been awarded with the Cologne Thumper 2007.

The »Cologne Thumper« is the only design award that is issued by students. The list of winners is quite respectable: James Auger, Erik Spiekermann or even John Maeda are amongst the winners. A special issue is that it is only given to the winner if he comes to Cologne and physically receives it.

This year for the first time the students made an exemption to the iron rule, because a close family member of Kalle Lasn got seriously sick. They found a compromise: Kalle Lasn was attending the award night through 4 video messages.

I am really happy that something like this award exists and it's interesting to see that especially responsible design was awarded in the last years. Here's a link to the video messages that Kalle Lasn sent in for the night..

And that's only one ingredient that we now know that it causes a disease. Recently I saw a tv documentation about asbestos. It took more than 50 years to ban it - and this not even worldwide as in India it still is a common construction material and I saw a factory where workers handle it without gloves or head mask.

A good question also is: if we now know that it causes diseases (the butter flavouring) - why wait another three years? How many people does the industry want to make suffer for the sake of revenues. It's really always the same old story... . The only thing we can really do is eat somewhat naturally grown and produced ingredients. And that's hard... and expensive.

... at least it is a bit more abstract than the 2006 Soccer World Cup logo from Germany. That was really like something made in the Kindergarten.

Somehow I like the complexity of the shapes as they do not seem to make sense on first sight. I think it's quite courageous to do something like that for a billion dollar event. I think it could be much better if the »London« typeface (which is really horrible) would be separated from the logo and act more like a subline.

Cologne is the capital of furniture design in Germany - once a year there is a big interior design fair that is only competed by the Salone in Milan. So there's a lot of slick chairs, tables, boards and people in the city at that time. This always quickly leads to a interior design overkill. Especially as the cultural off-event got more and more commercialized.

Now there's something new in town: for the first time there will be Rheindesign - a non-commercial event that is concentrating on design not in aspects of saleability. Rheindesign is supposed to be an event that consists of over 30 projects that are spread all over Cologne.

Alongside the participation of big names like Jean-Marie Massaud or ora-ito, I'm mostly looking forward to the experimental projects that are going on there: for example a concert with washing-mashines on the Neumarkt or the exhibition »From Vandalism to Fandalism« that is organized by students of the Köln International School of Design.

I think this event could really become something social in design: getting out on the streets and involve people in design processes wether it be by provocation, involvement or demonstration. For all those who won't be able to come to Cologne: the ROGER Designmagazine will put up a blog and hopefully report from all of the 30 events. Here's a link to the blog, that will work only in three or four days.

I don't know what the situation in the U.S. is - but here in Germany the government is paying for schools and still (I'm sure that's the same in the US) spending for defense and other »important« governmental issues is much higher than it is for education.

And the buildings where »school« is taking place suffer the most from this situation. However - many see the only solution in letting participate the private sector in education. But I'm afraid of this - being educated by the protagonists of economy could lead to a very single-directed education.

In this context I would really like to know if the bags from Freitag are still made of old truck tarpaulins. They must have such a huge production that it might get hard to find used ones. [They are still unique and made from original, used truck tarpaulins, bicycle innertubes, car seat belts and used airbags.

Well.. I'm not sure. But »used« can of course be a very open definition.

»There is a huge lack of knowledge among Swedish companies (mostly small and mid-size). And it is not because of the lack of clever and talented designers in Sweden...«, as David Carlson writes.

Hidden qualities of designers

I think a huge problem in this is the reputation that designers have. It is obvious that mostly designers are seen as the ones that have visual or styling competence. Of course this are the most important skills - but this is not all. Layouts can be done by an illustrator, products can be designed by craftsmen.

So for me, the hidden quality of the designer is the understanding of processes and strategies in design - or in the words of the starter of this post, David Carlson: »how to write a creative design brief«. I agree with him in this regard.

Reduced to a be stylist?

So is there really a »backlash«? Gui Bonsiepe would surely agree. In a lecture called Design & Democracy he held when he was granted of a honorary doctor at the Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana in Santiago de Chile in June 2005, he criticized that design more and more »moved away from the idea of »intelligent problem solving« (James Dyson) and drew nearer to the ephemeral, fashionable and quickly obsolete, to formal-aesthetic play, to the boutiquization of the universe of products of everyday life.«

Gui Bonsiepe is a scholar of Tomás Maldonado, who was teaching at the Ulm School of Design. And we know, at that school there was a lot of research connecting design ...