time to rethink design

Culturally connected design

Making Design matter should be about ‘mind over matter’.

Using our creative minds, our collective imagination

and ability to evolve human construction. The act

of design is a truly powerful human intervention, but we

must do it lightly and we must think more coherently

before we act. All design should support or strengthen

life in one way or another.

Does design have a value if it does not favour the human

context? Design remains an isolated foreign object when

it has no sense of belonging; it employs no reward and

processes no genus loci. The best design has so often

managed to transfer social trends and lifestyle changes

into successful responsive products and services. It does

so by holding onto a holistic perspective, which respects

humanistic values and cultural identity.

Designs’ DNA needs to be reconfigured. Rather than

continue to focus its attention upon invention, innovation,

and enterprise, it should be reconciling the human

state and contributing humility, compassion, empathy

and beauty. To transcend the norm, and to leave the

world a better place than we found it.

Design is no longer about the lifestyle, but the lifecycle.

Everything that is man made is designed, so we cannot

blame nature for overreacting or the current design

aware generation for poor quality. We must orientate

our endeavours towards understanding ambiguity and

contradiction, embracing diversity over uniformity and

identifying inclusiveness, over exclusiveness.

Designer Naoto Fukasawa speaks about this kind of design

ethic, in a recent interview: “I understand that my

role is about enhancing our living…. I’ve become more

attached to the current life, and have started considering

the betterment of our lives in a reality where we all

belong, rather than predicting what could happen”. This

interview displays Naoto’s interest in the act of living

the now. He puts his ear to the ground and listens. He

brings sensuality and ritual back into our lives.

http://www.davidreport.com/the-report/time-to-rethink-design