Redefining Wealth

I found the essay on the excellent design site A Brief Message (200 word essays on design - well worth a look). It reminded me of the piles of inorganic waste that is heaped at the roadside for periodic collection - for some reason those white plastic outdoor chairs always seem to feature strongly. In the Story of Stuff presenter Annie Leonard claims that just 1% of stuff consumed in the United States is still in use just 6 months after it is bought. (Think about next time you are comtemplating adding a new tchotchke to your pile).

In our post-industrial world, where “artisanal” refers to cheese and “heirloom” to tomatoes, design refers to the new, the innovative, the global. Even with all the talk of carbon footprints and environmental stewardship, design is too often about the transitive and the temporary.

Before the Industrial Revolution, artisans created heirlooms. Each object was imbued with personality and value; heirlooms were tools intended to last for generations.

Perhaps it’s a bit old-fashioned to stress the importance of the art and craft of design in today's connected world.

Imagine a cell phone that lasts like a Stickley chair or a magazine that matters like a Gutenberg Bible.

Change is the watchword of the day, driving business and politics and society. But, there's a new form of change on the horizon; we’re heading into a constrained environment where the designer's artistry and craft will have to encourage what lasts, what matters, what sustains.

As designers, we have the opportunity to use our art and craft to redefine wealth in the future. We have the opportunity and the responsibility to create a world where each object and experience is filled with value, where living with less but better is both joyful and meaningful.

Comments

Ze Frank thinks so you don't have to

Ze Frank appeared on my radar when I saw his presentation among the excellent TED Talks videos . This morning I was reading Russell Davies planning blog in which he referred to a clip by Ze Frank - Where do ideas come from. Here's the transcript: "...Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima [sic] writes, "Are you ever gonna break into song again? Are you running out of ideas?" Hungry Hippo licks Aunt JEmima, that's a good question. I run out of ideas every day! Each day I live in mortal fear that I've used up the last idea that'll ever come to me. If you don't wanna run out of ideas the best thing to do is not to execute them. You can tell yourself that you don't have the time or resources to do 'em right. Then they stay around in your head like brain crack. No matter how bad things get, at least you have those good ideas that you'll get to later. Some people get addicted to that brain crack. And the longer they wait, the more they convince themse...

Johnny Bunko competiton

The Great Johnny Bunko Challenge from DHP on Vimeo . There's a young chap in Indiana, one Alec Quig , who has written to me about creating a career based on a polymathic degree, from which he has recently graduated. He's an interesting young man and his concerns about going forward in life are the anxieties we all face at crossroads in our lives when we are forced to make choices. Dan Pink's latest book The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need might help: "From a New York Times, BusinessWeek, and Washington Post bestselling author comes a first-of-its- kind career guide for a new generation of job seekers.There's never been a career guide like it.the fully illustrated story (ingeniously told in Manga form) of a young Everyman just out of college who lands his first job. Johnny Bunko is new to parachute company Boggs Corp., and he stumbles through his early days as a working stiff until a crisis prompts him to find a new job. St...

Why billboards must go.

The problem with billboards and advertising in public places is they are an invasion of privacy. Unlike magazine, tv, radio (etc) advertising you cannot choose to turn it off or avoid it. Nor does it offer anything in return. It is a medium that offers no benefit or advantage to the person it is inflicted on. At least television ads subsidise the programming. Without doubt some billboards are entertaining - I thought the anti GE poster for short lived MADGE activist group was particularly good. But most are rubbish. Literally. Badly executed. Nothing important to say. The debate has led to a great deal of hysteria - mostly from people with a vested interest in perpetuating the deployment of hoardings. Perhaps the idea that the issue at stake is 'property rights' is the creepiest. If you own a building you have every right to plaster anything you like on its external surfaces. Is that an antisocial point of view? I think so. In the UK you could have an ASBO slapped on you for si...

ThoughtSpurs

Search This Blog