Design for Debate - {Notes from a design journal}

Graced by a plethora of digital 3D renders, stylized illustrations, glossy product sketches, detailed typographic posters and mammoth architectural models, my Instagram feed seems visually stimulating at first, but eventually gives way to fatigue. This is the story of most design students in an era of visual eye candy. Overwhelmed with the nature of design, designed, and designer content, I felt the need to step back and try to find answers to the other questions that I had. Through the consequent semesters, countless design briefs, last minute assignments, tiring all nighters, final juries, un(der)paid client work, and grilling critiques — these questions had always stayed with me.

Questions about the role of design, the need for creativity, the impact of work that we create and the responsibility of designers in the bigger context were a few of those.

In the wake of the pandemic, these questions turned out to be far more relevant and pressing. The world had come to a still and I was left to myself- to reflect and ponder upon these thoughts. During a month long lock down, some design reading seemed like a great thing to do. I had picked up the book, ‘Speculative Everything’ after a discussion about it in one of my systems thinking class. Needless to say, it was one of the most valuable reading I had done in a long time.

“When people think about design, most believe it is about problem solving; Even the more expressive forms of design are about solving aesthetic problems. Faced with huge challenges such as overpopulation, water shortages and climate change, designers feel an overpowering urge to work together to fix them, as though they can broken down, quantified, and solved. Design’s inherent optimism leaves no alternative but it is becoming clear that many of the challenges we face today are unfixable and that the only way to overcome them is by changing our values, beliefs, attitude and behaviour.”- Excerpt from ‘Speculative Everything’ by Dunne and Raby.

“Design for debate, rather than design for production”

Design for Debate. (Typography by Swarna Manjari)

As consumers in this capitalist economy, perpetual growth by creating and manufacturing more and more products runs the economic machine. As designers, and students we need to ask ourselves; are we preparing and skilling ourselves to be a part as cogs in the economic machine? Or are we willing to assess our positions and rethink our roles in society?

As students in different disciplines, ranging from architecture, graphic design, product design, and fashion, we create products, services, processes,and systems that manifest themselves as larger consumer needs in the society. With a rise in human centered design, we design for user needs and wants; we think of sustainability, aiming to create green products that are harmless to the environment; we create buildings and houses with sustainable ecosystems; we live by the rule of form and function; we accept the dogma of problem solving; we define that good design fulfills aesthetic sensibility, technical feasibility and economic viability. However, most of these solutions fall short sighted, and in the process of designing and executing them, we tend to satisfy the needs of the present while sacrificing the future.

When we create anything, we bring a great sense of value to it. We follow a comprehensive process, put a lot of thought, and execute it; but we rarely think of how it may evolve over time, what impact it will have and how it might change people and surroundings. Simply put, we design for the present, not for the future. “We design in space, not in time” as said byTony Fry(author of ‘Design Futuring’).

The designer does breathe life into a product when creating it, but often forgets that the product has a life of its own after it reaches the users.

“This shift from thinking about applications to implications creates a need for new design roles, contexts and methods. It’s not only about designing for commercial, market-led contexts but also for broader societal ones. It’s not only about designing products that can be consumed and used today, but also imaginary ones that might exist in years to come.”— Excerpt from Dunne and Raby’s blog.

Thus, there needs to be a shift in conversation among designers about the social, political, technological and ethical implications of what we design. We need to be asking ourselves ‘futuring’ questions about global scenarios that we could possibly make an impact on. We will need to interact and actively work with sociologists, authors, scientists, policy makers, activists, artists, businessmen and lawyers to work on solutions and scenarios. We need to be at the forefront of creating for the global future; the people and the planet.

This need for shifting focus is not a moral one; rather, is a practical necessity for the foreseeable future.

As a part of a redirective approach, the student community forms a very important place in this context. We are capable of unlimited exploration and experimentation, still not swallowed up by the responsibilities of the economic engine. This allows for a space of collective debate, complex arguments and radical thinking. We can connect with various disciplines and create a community of redirective practitioners. We could be a generation that thinks through time, places beliefs, attitude and values at the core of what we make and create an age of sustainable designing and living.

Thus, sparking debate, speculating realities and questioning implications of what we design is vital for alternative futures.

Note from the author: The next part of the conversation will be the methods and processes to do so.

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Originally published on May 5, 2020.