by Herman Manson (@marklives) Hella Jongerius is railing against shit design — design driven purely by profit, design without conscience, design without awareness.
The Dutch industrial and product designer is calling for these values to be integrated into industrial design once again because, she told delegates at the 20th annual Design Indaba conference, the earth needs help; those exploited through low-paying, outsourced jobs need help; consumers need help; and, yes, producers need help.
Help and improvement in the condition of all these stakeholders can be improved through a more holistic approach among industrial designers, and can be used once again to focus on quality and practical economics.
Jongerius argues that design should move away from objects as isolated items; instead it should interrogate their relationship with people.
Six steps
Jongerius offers six steps to assist industrial designers in achieving this goal:
- Design the materials. It allows designers to repurpose old material and explore the process of creation (and improvement) right from the start.
- Keep the design process hands-on. Literally. Jongerius believes in the value of crafting with one’s hands — touching and experiencing the material and designed object.
- Celebrate imperfection as perfection (may) kill(s) creativity.
- Make use of archives — explore past solutions and learn from them. This creates greater cultural awareness in a time obsessed only with the new.
- Have a signature (essentially a call to craftsmanship) that makes your work recognisable.
- Research, ask questions, find knowledge.
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