Design must be an innovative, highly creative, cross-disciplinary tool responsive to the needs of men. It must be more research-oriented, and we must stop defiling the earth itself with poorly-designed objects and structures.
Interpretation
Design should be innovative and responsive to human needs, while also being mindful of environmental impact.
Victor Papanek emphasizes the importance of design as a tool that is not only innovative and creative but also responsible and research-oriented. He argues that design should cater to human needs and halt the creation of harmful products that damage the environment, highlighting the ethical obligation of designers to consider the consequences of their work on the planet.
In practice
In a presentation on sustainable design principles, one might quote Papanek to emphasize thoughtful design.
We live in a society that penalizes highly creative individuals for their non-conformist autonomy. This makes the teaching of problem solving in design both discouraging and difficult. A...student (has) massive blocks against new ways of thinking, engendered by some 16 years of mis-education.
Design is the patterning and planning of any act toward a desired, foreseeable end... any attempt to separate design, to make it a thing-by-itself works, counter to the fact that design is the primary underlying matrix of life.
There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a few.
The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.
I am passionate about what design can do - how far it can support the new ideas and the new ways of living of this 21st Century. Good design accelerates this exciting future where manufacturing is local, materials and processes are cradle to cradle, business models are both socially and financially driven.
Designers stand between revolutions and everyday life. They’re able to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and society and convert those changes into objects and ideas that people can understand.
If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the letter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information off the page... When it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful.
Confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information. And so the point is to find design strategies that reveal detail and complexity - rather than to fault the data for an excess of complication. Or, worse, to fault viewers for a lack of understanding.
It is sad that so many designers don't know how to make. CAD software can make a bad design look palatable! It is sad that four years can be spent on a 3D design course without making anything! People who are great at designing and making have a great advantage.
Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.
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