Get ‘greengaged’ Today

The 2008 London Design Festival will see the launch of greengaged at the Design Council – a hub of events, debates, workshops, exhibitions, seminars and masterclasses which will bring together all sectors of the design industry to focus on sustainability issues, exchange ideas and carve out new roles for design.

Hosted by the Design Council in Covent Garden greengaged is set to be one of the highlights of this year’s festival, examining ecological imperatives, political and social drivers, and sustainable design strategies across disciplines from product design to graphics, service design to fashion.

greengaged aims to galvanise designers to take up the sustainable challenge and will feature some of the most forward-thinking designers and innovators in their fields to engage the wider design industry in getting involved, becoming informed and sharing expertise and opinions.

Un-Design….

Found this work of Anneke Jakobs very interesting where she talks about ‘undesigning’. The concept of working backwards from a finished product to trace ‘what it all began with’ is an exercise worth takin once in a while….it would make one appreciate the ideating process of the designer and what he/she has in hand to start off with.

An ‘Idea(l)’ Combination

Came across this excerpt from James Webb-Young’s book- A Technique for Producing Ideas.

He says, ‘Ideas are new combinations…..Design is the practice of combining things, ideally in ways that haven’t been seen before. So the more stuff you know (about everything), the greater is your chance to find a relevant, distinctive and therefore effective (original) combination’.

Well, it is his point of view, but quite an interesting one, something I can relate to as a designer…..maybe that’s what the team at A-Asterix tried to do with their Signterior Project (refer to my previos post) – I only wish the result had been more stimulating…..

Universal Connections via the USB!

dialog05 is a design group from Munich whose debut work ‘universal connections‘ is something to write about. Quoting from the group’s website – ” what is the difference between analogue and digital, physical and virtual? what connects and bridges these apparently different worlds?  this is the area we wanted to explore with our universal connections experiment and project. It is a question that each member of dialog05 addresses on a daily basis as an industrial designer creating consumer products.”

The group has effectively used the oh-so-common USB that was once a landmark by technology standards to represent their take on the way new products are received and accepted and become an integral, even inseparable part of peoples’ lives, sometimes taking the form of something totally different from the original idea.

I loved the overall concept of their work as well as the choice of products……and I wouldn’t mind owning few of them if they were indeed operational USBs!

‘data injection’ – not only for data junkies, also in the event of a virus. or simply for your daily data rations!

‘data lock’ – no access for unauthorized persons.

‘peer-to-peer’ – communication is spontaneous, direct, and works best between two individuals. is digital a serious alternative?

‘theft’ – data security, virus protection, video piracy and industrial espionage – a tool for theft on a digital level.

‘essentials’ – what are our essential needs? what do we really need for surviving?

Design for the Other 90%

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%,” says Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises

I agree, it’s really sad that design today has become the luxury of the rich, when design can actually contribute in numerous ways to uplift the poor, be it employment/livelihood, education, shelter, health and so on….. I think it’s important for us as designers to realise and discover ways to contribute to the task. For starters, you could look up www.other90.cooperhewitt.org/ to know more about the ‘other 90%.’