24
DISSENY CRÍTIC,
2007
Is critical design possible?Design, a magnificent advancement tool for any group activity that is focused on social improvement, will find it difficult to point in this direction while we live in an economic system whose main objective consists of obtaining profits for private capital. The potential development of design, both for designers and for all of society, thus demands that we walk a path towards an alternative socioeconomic system, that doesn’t have private capital as a base but rather the complete development of the population.
“I am not pleading for the production of a bit more beauty in the world, no matter how much I love it and how much I am ready to sacrifice myself to it; it is the life of human beings I am pleading for”
[ WILLIAM MORRIS ] 1
I have accepted the commitment to write this article due to the conviction that design professionals may find it of interest to know how outside viewers see them and their world. Effectively, I have an economist’s vision of Design and this is the first time that I have deigned to write about a topic such as this. Until now, to me this discipline was essentially a procedure to improve the functionality of a product or its aesthetics, mainly with the objective of being able to better sell it and obtain better profits. Included in this definition is the importance it has in transmitting a message, or its effect on space, territory and the landscape. Two aspects are distinguished here: the aesthetic and the functional, although in practice both sides almost always go hand in hand. However, the thought I have had to devote to this subject when committing to writing this article made me see almost immediately that Design is much more than the narrow vision I had placed in the cupboard of my many topics of ignorance. It seems like professionals in the world of projects see their profession as a much broader task, difficult to delimit between a contribution to the productive system or to advertising and marketing, with a much greater scope and a much greater effect on modern society. “There are those who speak of designers as “content providers”, something that is intimately linked to the conceptual development of projects and not simply to an aesthetic resolution”2. There is a much broader and more interesting scope here than I had originally thought. Nonetheless and personally, Design –both in its industrial and aesthetic tangents- is still a procedure incorporated to an object or way of providing a service or a space. On the one hand, it is difficult to distinguish from advertising and marketing. It is a fluid system of open delimitation depending on concrete cases. Furthermore, in the modern world, Design is undergoing a strong impact from the possibilities opened up by new technologies. Is design a hybrid of Art, technology an the business world? The functions of Design
Modern society (it may be different in other types of societies) makes it difficult for me to disassociate Design from the corporate world. I believe that the reasons for seeking a suitable design can be largely expressed by the attempt to use Design as an instrument to procure ever-larger market share, to be able to sell more. To obtain greater profits by adding a better design to the merchandise that is being presented onto the market, to the spaces or to the ideas that they use to sway public opinion. I know that Design can, should be used for other reasons, but it is difficult for me to see what that is in reality. Amongst designers, there are definitely many people who want to use their knowledge for other purposes and i t is very possible that they even try to do so, but the vast majority of their activity seems to be linked to the business world or the transmission of messages to influence public opinion. Design is a tool to obtain greater material or ideological benefits. And I think that this feature of Design in our society determines what it is and what we can expect from society to a large degree. In the economic context of current capitalist societies, where one of the most serious problems of companies is finding enough buyers for their products, Design is used principally to try to increase market share. Merchandise manufacturers try to make them more attractive functionally or aesthetically in order to increase product demand and, probably, obtain a higher price for the new and improved product. In disseminating ideas, design is also used to transmit the message more convincingly than others competing in the same sector. In tough modern competitive societies, design fundamentally fulfils the role of an active agent against business or ideological competition. Likewise by diversifying the product into different aesthetic categories, the selling company manages to differentiate and segment demand to be able to obtain for itself that which economists term “consumer surplus”. Design represents one further business competition tool to be able to capture a greater demand. On the other hand, design can be an instrument of planned obsolescence, in the sense of merely modifying the design of a product without altering its essential properties in the slightest, with the sole objective of making it necessary to purchase the same product again in its new incarnation. The fashion world is probably the setting where this role of design can be seen most clearly, although it seems to be increasingly frequent in the area of pharmaceutical products and many others. It also represents an increasingly common method to force renovation of equipment in industry or the home, when the impossibility of finding replacement parts means that items must be replaced that could have been kept in use for quite some more time. Design is tightly linked to brands and advertising3. Design seems to be often used as the identifying flag of a good brand as well as the reverse, when a brand guarantees that there will be an attractive design. And both aspects are used without limit to persuade consumers of their dire need for a specific consumption, with a parallel impact on social values: “Designers who spend their time and efforts primarily on advertising, marketing and brand development are contributing to and implicitly backing a mental setting that is so saturated with commercial messages that it is completely changing the way that citizens-consumers speak, think, respond and interact”4. The book “No Logo” by Naomi Klein has discussed this issue in depth, so I will not go into greater depth here.
But it looks like designers go further. Glancing over some of their works, these professionals seem to consider themselves as “content providers”. What does this mean exactly? I wonder if it means that designers can model the nature of what is considered a need, a wish, assigning them very specific forms (that are quite often connected to specific brands by means of a large advertising load). Even more, they not only impact the perception of needs and desires for objects, spaces and ideas that they can satisfy, but they can even generate them, instigating new needs and demanding precise ways of satisfying them5. Design thus becomes an element capable of setting guidelines for desires, values and behaviours that construct and transform society. In this case, designers become 21st century magicians. Is this what those in question refer to as “the social responsibility of designers”? Honestly, manipulating what may or may not be a social need does not allow serious ethical aspects to be posed. There is rising concern regarding design. It not only exists in the aforementioned business sphere, but also forms an increasingly large part of the public sphere, of collective life. The design of buildings, although territory left exclusively to architects, who seem to consider themselves the “higher designers”, is acquiring more and more importance. However, the design of all types of public spaces is not lagging far behind, including that of cities –town planning, urban furniture design and landscape design– in the interminable division of work in our societies. It could be argued that design is also used widely in public life, in the collective area, which apparently is not subject to this competitive struggle. However, it seems like everyone must see that the design of collective ideas and spaces in our society does not have as its main objective the creation of a more functional and attractive society and environment. Instead, it is intersected on the one hand by intense competition between political alternatives that try to influence “their voting market” and, on the other hand, by trends of assessing the public role that is increasingly intersected by a certain way of perceiving and managing what is public, consisting of minimising public spending on social areas. In the public sphere, design seems to be directed at legitimising the role of shift managers at the least possible cost; more than increasing the quality of what is useful, increasing the perception of what is beautiful, improving culture, in a word, increasing the population’s sensitivity and elevating their quality of life. The perverse utilisation of design cannot be ignored as an instrument of social control for the transmission of values that interest the powers that be, their assumption of public opinion and their rejection of those who do not accept it. Herein is another aspect that affects designers: to whom do they owe their concern and loyalty? Who do they work for? Do they have to meet the wishes of those hiring them, the institution or public body, or should they turn to more democratic requests? Is it enough to consider that political institutions represent citizens or should they seek a more intimate knowledge? How can the desires of public opinion be known? Here we find ourselves faced with an apparently trivial aspect of our societies that nevertheless takes us to high-level debates regarding the democratic expression of collective opinions. Taking all these aspects into consideration, the ethical evaluation of Design oscillates between the business world and the political world, which perceives it as a useful business scheme, if not essential6, for obtaining greater sales, profits or adscription to ideas and bad press suffered by the criticism of many or all of the aspects of this society. But in both cases, what is evaluated is the capacity of Design to create needs and desires and specific ways of satisfying them. It truly seems like Design is an extremely powerful tool. Although, within a general social context, it seems to be merely a “secondary” element, which remains discretely in the background, far from the main players (since its function essentially consists of enhancing other things: products, items, spaces, ideas) it is still very close to where the strings are pulled that run the show. However, it would be completely unfair to ignore the worry of many designers about their social function, about what they represent in modern society, about the ethical aspects of their activity: “Making images is not ethically neutral ground”. There are even designers who try to focus their work towards opening critical images of the world in which we live. “We are surrounded by images created by designers and these images, clearly, have an influence on their viewers, because they cause and maintain ideas about what is desirous and what is normal”. They are cultural expressions created to influence our aspirations and feed our desires. Thus ‘we should not let ourselves think that we are simply transmitting information’ because in reality, designers are cogs in the machine that does not just sell products but also sells ideas… through their role in the world of consumption, they create and maintain “the symbolic connection between the structure of power and our experience of reality” 7. Many designers have felt critical about what modern design involves and there have been and is a broad reflection of some designers on their role as agents of globalisation and about the power of the large multinationals, as well as the responsibility of the profession itself in this context. “The debate has polarised around two extremes: complicity with power and social practice… Are they merely technicians providing a service or are they parties committed to the contents that they give shape to?”8 although they surely represent a minority, it is a lot more than can be said of the majority of other professions that are also involved in shaping social awareness (for example, the role of economists). For these designers, serving society seems to be a central concern in the function of Design. Who designs?
I am not sure if our era is the first in which design schools have been established, but it may be the first in which they have acquired the social importance they currently hold. Their students try to familiarise themselves with those aspects that lead them to improve designs to produce objects that are better suited to their function and are more beautiful. They surely dream of designing stunningly beautiful objects, fantastic spaces, having an impact on social perception. But, how is modern Design being structured? It is not artisans modelling cherished objects as William Morris would have postulated9. Design in the modern age is just a small part of an entire business organisation in which, in the best of cases, some people who are prepared to execute this function carry out their activity, frequently in teams, subject to corporate plans whose bottom line is profit. Earning profits is the central axis that guides all business activities and within this, of course, the role of the designer or more probably the Design department where several designers work. Even prestigious “customers” for whom individual designers work are nothing more than corporations or their representatives, with the exception of the occasional millionaire who cannot be considered as the regular market for the profession. Individual designers are nothing more than specialised wage earners, employees who must faithfully fulfil the orders of their bosses subject to all considerations of economic margins that affect their activities. And this is the best of cases, as it is probable that if someone really wanted to work independently in Design, they would be forced to work as freelancer, scraping by to earn a living, with long periods of unemployment or little work. The idea of the designer as an independent professional is a dream or has become a fallacy. Design professionals who can earn a good living as freelancers, as desing artists, are extremely rare, although these privileged souls probably do earn a very good living10. Michael Rock, responding to the question: “What does it mean to be a designer?”, stated that it was “a problem of defining the term…, always based upon a task whose starting point is someone else’s project, the customer who generally is not very willing to pay so that designers leave their clear personality and personal emotions imprinted upon the work”11. Reading the thoughts of several designers about their professions, the image they project about themselves is really quite impressive, as artists, as “content providers”, as “creators of values and opinions”, as “generators of spaces”. It is indeed true that designers can transmit a way of viewing many of the aspects of our society, influencing values, but in the vast majority of cases, designers, if they are lucky, are employees who have to faithfully follow the instructions of their bosses, although by doing so, they do impact social values. Like many other professions, (economists, engineers) their designs must be directed at meeting the employers’ objectives with no deviations. It seems a frail favour to pass on to future designers to keep this illusion alive of the great artistic freedom of this career. Those who will achieve it are numbered. And even these few, the level of freedom they will enjoy will be narrowly delimited by fulfilling their main function, which is none other than obtaining greater profits. The design crew at Benetton for example, are famous, highly valued and rich, but would they continue being so if their aggressive designs did not contribute to selling this brand’s clothing? The importance of design in the public area has been mentioned earlier. It seems that in collective spaces, individual designers or a team can have a greater impact due to not being directly limited by profits. However, it was also mentioned that improving the function and beauty of objects and spaces is not free either, but frequently serves to legitimise leaders in an electoral process with minimum expense. What consequences can the current trend to decrease public spending in the social and collective sphere have on adequate public spaces? On the other hand, it is not possible to ignore the, unfortunately quite common practice, of selecting people who are ideologically in tune with those holding power or with bureaucratic measures amongst the project designers, even though they may not always be the most technically qualified... In what I have read about the function and responsibility of designers, I find it strange that it centres on the function of “high-calibre designers” or star designers. In other words, designers who set the standards. I think it is both logical and interesting that this core of the profession is concerned about these aspects. However, it would appear to be more desirable to do so without detriment to the majority of designers by defining them as workers in the world of work horses, and focus on their true social function and problems from this viewpoint. Who do they design for?
Design frequently has a connotation of luxury. Generally, well-designed products and spaces correspond to products and spaces consumed and utilised by the upper classes. Design is used as a social status symbol. A good design equals an expensive product. Nobody speaks of product design for flea markets. This is totally coherent with the utilisation of design to sell merchandise at higher prices. I have always been surprised that the same architects who design beautiful buildings for the “noble” zones of cities, design horrible cages for people in working class neighbourhoods. Is it possible to bring designing products and spaces for the masses into line with the stress of cost reduction and high profits? The experience of industrial capitalism with the vulgarity and ugliness of lower class urban settings does not make one feel particularly optimistic. Despite the wishes, efforts and protests of many designers, who demand a generalised and mass use for their work, Design primarily represents an elitist product (even in the area of industrial design where it is applied to products with superior quality), in an activity reserved only for the highest-earning social stratums. Not only this, but frequently Design is used precisely to differentiate the products aimed at the richest from the products for the masses. In a global economy, where the competition of all products, especially those directed at lower-class or mass consumption is extremely tough and is based on products manufactured by workers on the other side of the world, with miserable salaries, for their sale at extremely low prices to the precarious workers in the rich countries, it ends up becoming difficult to expect that design occupies a relevant place. Paraphrasing the oft-mentioned W. Morris, will we be forced to say: “[...] under these conditions, I do not want art (design) to live, I prefer it does not live... I do not want it only for the few”12. Can’t it be different?
What a beautiful and magnificent world it would be where the people who do a job had the opportunity to join the art and pleasure of creation! In which designs were produced aimed at improving the functionality and aesthetic of the lives of the majority of the population. A tool to strengthen the immense cultural potential that is still unexplored. There is no doubt that product and space design have the ability to substantially improve the environment and products that we use. To convert the most obscure object for daily use into a thing that gives pleasure to use it and look upon it. To direct the values of a population in the direction of respect for others, tolerance, freedom, harmony and personal and collective happiness13. Through Design, a critical activity of the society in which it moves could be permanently carried out on a permanent basis. A net perception of collective life. Revealing its limitations, making its defects clear, mobilising collective consciousness. Cooperating with the social perception of the need to improve it and the multiple activities required to achieve it. Design could be a magnificent tool for empowering all group activity aimed at social improvement. Objective capacity exists here, mixed with technique and Art. Design can, should, contribute to substantially improving the quality of life of the population. It will be extremely difficult to point Design in this direction while we live in an economic system whose main objective is to obtain profits for private capital. While the central axes of economic activity are established by the decisions of those seeking their own profits, Design, like everything else, shall be subordinated to this objective. This does not rule out the possibility that some things can be improved. If designers are determined to use their knowledge to come as close as possible to the social function of efficiency and beauty that they consider their field to be, to fight to contribute values of justice and harmony for society, some improvements in the margins of the system will be possible. To achieve this, designers have to be permanently in tension between their desire to improve the product and the tight structure imposed by the productive and communicative structure and the economic system in which they move. A resolute decision by design professionals to focus their work in this direction could possibly achieve some positive results. Designers, in order to achieve their own professional fulfilment and enrichment, and like all citizens aware of the limits of this society who want transformation towards a fairer and more harmonious society, shall have to make the effort here and now to move towards the creation of “autonomous spaces”. Moving towards a profession that avoids design being limited by economic aspects and profit, but rather directed towards the improvement of culture, beauty and the quality of life of the lower classes. I wonder if designers could even integrate popular design and knowledge14 into their techniques, in a rich symbiosis of cultures and knowledge. Or if it is possible for the employee to simultaneously be the designer of his products in many cases and if the integration of “arts and crafts” would be possible, as professional schools were called in the past. The expansion and proliferation of experiences in this direction could eventually convert design into a more dynamic activity that is more focused on the general well-being of the population.
But it is not so easy. If everything is focused in the opposite direction: if fame, professional recognition, promotions, work conditions and designer salaries are all governed by Design’s contribution to obtaining profits or achieving the objectives set by the powers that be, moving against the current will require a permanent struggle, an almost heroic one, for design professionals. The development of the full potential of Design, for both design professionals and all of society, requires walking towards an alternative socioeconomic system, not based on private capital but on the full development of the population. As long as design does not represent an activity directed at improving the products and spaces for all of society, it is difficult to visualise its use “ as something made by the people and for the people and as a joy for the creator and the user... as a true ‘democratic art’ that comprises and summarises all popular arts”15. 1 Morris, W. (2004): "How we live and how we should live". Logroño: Pepitas de Calabaza Ediciones. p.21
2 Pelta, R. (2004). "Diseñar hoy: temas contemporáneos de diseño gráfico" (1998-2003). Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós, p. 49
3 There has been great insistence that advertising provides information to possible consumers that they could not obtain without it. It is true that advertising lets consumers knowabout more products and processes whose knowledge would otherwise be further fromtheir reach, but on the one hand, we must distinguish between the function of informationand communication that advertising has and the function of its persuasion to induce decisions desired by the advertising agency. It is clear that the second function is dominant in the large part of current advertising tools and occupies the majority of advertising activities and means, at an enormous distance from the limited informative function.
4 "First Things First, Manifiesto 2000". Taken from Pelta R. Op. Cit., p. 67
5 Although it seems like this function is exercised more in advertising.
6 Think about the importance of design to keep consumers loyal to brands like Coca Cola, Nike and slews of others.
7 Pelta R. Op. Cit., p. 74 collecting several quotes from different authors.
8 Ch. 2 of the work by Pelta R. who I quote repeatedly has seemed like an interesting and suitable summary of the debate in this matter.
9 Morris W. Op. Cit. Introduction by Schindel E.
10 In my ignorance of this world, I was impressed by an interview of Philippe Starck published in El Periódico on four February, who seems to be a very famous design who earns a good living.
11 Pelta R. Op. Cit. p. 52 Author’s note: Even in this more realist vision, reference continues to be made to ‘the customer’, implying an isolated customer, private, but not ‘the standard’ in a company that uses the services of designers.
12 Morris W. Op. Cit. p.22
13 This function should never consist of anyone, not even with the best intentions, manipulating the desires of individuals and groups, but in cooperating to express their best feelings and values, under their own initiative. The manipulation of values of others should not be considered in any alternative society.
14 I think I may have read that there are efforts in this direction by specific groups of designers.
15 Morris W., about architecture. Op. Cit. p. 15
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Sobre l'autor
MIREN ETXEZARRETA
Miren Etxezarreta és doctora en CC. Econòmiques per la London School of Economics, catedràtica d’Economia Aplicada en la UAB, on actualment és catedràtica emèrita. Planteja una visió crítica dels estudis d’economia i és membre de diversos movimients socials.
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