Design Diary Entry – Week Eight

In my opinion, good design creates usable products. People like usable products. What people like becomes popular and what is popular sells. (There’s a bit more to it, but I’ll leave it that for now) Sadly, oftentimes things become popular for the wrong reason: price, flash, loud packaging, cheap thrills; Selling points that deceive the consumer from true buying purpose. But products like these are fads, they fade and die. They don’t perform, break, wear out and you have to throw them away. That’s the system. The object has to go somewhere and what’s left is a mass grave, heaping piles of poorly designed garbage, more effort than it was worth. 

I’ve always been told: ‘don’t waste your time trying to get out of something when it would be easier to just do it in the first place.’ Why spend time cutting corners to save money up front, focusing on bringing down costs here and there then, even more time and effort trying to figure out how to convince people to buy your bastard thing? When from the beginning, you could develop a wholesome product with that would perform as intended and with integrity? It markets itself, albeit slowly. But if it you have a dependable product that will bring value to someone’s life? That was executed with intention and feeling? It will be adored, embraced, celebrated. There is more than just monetary capital to be gained. On the other hand, if people think your product will help them, it appears like it will, you tell them it will and then it doesn’t? You’ve betrayed their trust. You’ve failed your fellow man, you have failed as a designer, a marketer, a CEO, whatever you are. In the end, the product isn’t for the company that manufactures, markets or distributes. It isn’t for revenue streams. It’s for the people who will be having a relationship and a conversation with the product. Sadly, revenue streams are what make it all possible. Greed is so short sighted, if it would just be a little more patient, maybe we’d live in a better world.

It is capitalistic to be motivated to pursue this idea because of self gain. The democratic pursuit is much more humanitarian. It’s no wonder Scandinavian Design is so highly regarded as good design, democracy is one of it’s pillars. It’s about the wealth of the people, not being elite or personal status.

This past weekend, I received a fantastic book about Scandinavian Design, quite plainly entitled Scandinavian Design. Even after the first few pages, many of my observations and deductions have been proved true and taken a step further. Information that I never would be able to have deduced on my own. I have become somewhat familiar with the day-to-day; the state of Sweden today. I can see discrepancies between the values of mid-century, iconic Scandinavian design and that of the population today. With the shift towards globalization, Sweden appears to be moving towards westernization, poisoned by the values and vices of the western world. That is not the sort of globalization I have in mind.

One of those under underlying morals of Scandinavian artifacts is the type of worth to the user. The value lies it its purposefulness to the user, not as a symbol of status. It’s not about being elite, the ability to afford an exclusive item that shows how “important” you are. Rather, it’s about the object improving the lives of the many; affordable, useful, beautiful. Components and material are at an optimal minimum, enough to do it’s job at the best of it’s ability and nothing more to get in the way. Everyday objects that reflect people’s priorities; the quality of life. In the U.S. there isn’t a focus on the quality of life. Rather, the focus is on the appearance of a high quality of life. Ornamentation, best for less, gilded shit. This is what we live with, a world a facades. We’ve lived in a world of abundance and that is reflected in our values. Where as, in the cold north, where the home used to be a cozy refuge from the hard dark winter and where materials were oftentimes scarce, you had to be creative with the little you had. You had a sense of value and respect for the forces of nature greater than your own.

These are the values of a culture, the smalls lessons learned by a small population that apply to all of mankind. Lessons that can be applied and shared through good design.

Codee Adams
Product Designer