Thirty Conversations on Design, brief interviews with a number of people in the design world, offers broad themes and ways of looking at design. Grouped by artist and title of the piece (taken from what was the overall theme), the site offers a number of perspectives on what is important to a cross-section of designers.
One of the questions posed was what problem design should tackle next, and the editors compiled three montages based around the three most common answers: transportation, water and education. The education piece had no concrete solutions, just that design should be incorporated in lower-level education, not just at the higher levels. I’m all for that. There was talk of teachers, standardized tests, the usual plagues in education today, but not an example of how design education could be integrated into today’s educational system. I have no doubt that there are many excellent ways of incorporating design into education, and perhaps this isn’t the place for suggestions, but it would have bettered the piece.
The transportation montage was better, if only because, in addition to naming different types of transportation systems (planes, trains, automobiles), one woman actually gave examples. Make the lighting on trains better. Fix up the interiors and exteriors. Make the ride smooth and enjoyable. Although most of those talking about transportation didn’t specifically mention maps or signage, I got the impression that that was another major gripe, and one that goes hand-in-hand with the actual subway or bus system (or lack of it). It’s partly about information, and empowering the public so they will use the system and “promote” it by its use: “Make things make sense for the public.”
Paul Sahre tells a story about his grandfather taking a bobble head and planting it on top of an Old Spice bottle, giving it a touch of whimsy. It occurred to me, listening to him, that design is just as much about what a person brings to it, what it means to them, as it is about form, function, beauty, all the traditional stuff. Sahre spends most of his video waxing about this object and his grandfather, because the object has a lot of personal significance. And yeah, it’s cool that he recombined different objects, but the weight that it carries for Sahre is what stands out.
Chip Kidd talks about developing an identity and being credited for your work, all important things for anyone in a creative profession. Khoi Vinh, in discussing the Internet, also mentions that everything has a “crisis of identity” and that design is more than just selling things, but making of things. The line is often blurred, of course – a chair, something someone makes, is then marketed and sold.
Jennifer Morla also says that design captures a spirit of an era, and that a real, well-known design is one that is both timeless and of an particular era. This makes me think of all the Helvetica, modernist designs of midcentury, or of Paula Scher’s work for the New York Public Theater – iconic, yet of a particular time and place.
Ken Carbone reiterates three things that great design has, in this order: ingenuity, identity, and beauty. Paraphrased, if it’s a great idea and it’s useful, it’s inherently beautiful. Listening to this interviews, I was reminded of what turned out to be the “Design of the Decade,” the Target prescription bottle. There was a joke on Saturday Night Live on Saturday about the “thin line between Target and Wal-Mart,” but what differentiates the two stores, and what gives Target the greater cachet, is its focus on design.
The Design of the Decade, Target's prescription pill bottle.
The Target prescription bottle took a banal object and refashioned it into something that was useful, easy for customers to use, and referenced the store, by its red color. By completely reimaging what the bottle could be – thinking like Jennifer Morla, who advocated “no boundaries” – Target found itself a game-changer, because the designer thought smarter. Like Carbone said, it became an object of beauty in its own way, because it was easy and simple, a combination of form, function and practicality.
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