Zona Tortona saturated my mind with design, unfortunately of the prosaic and uninspiring variety. Given that design and innovation has changed, shaped and improved the world for billions of people, why do our current generation of designers feel the need to design for consumption rather than for change and progression?
Seeing table after table followed by chair after chair I do, at times, end up questioning the validity of the designer in modern society.
I felt like silently blowing my brains out in the corner of the Veuve Clicquot show, where a variety of ‘celebrity’ designers including 5.5, Tom Dixon and Karim Rashid have produced yet another range of decadent pointless shit.
I like champagne as much as the next guy, but you wouldn’t find me producing an item which offers nothing but a brand building exercise. Instead of producing elaborate champagne holders why not balance the decadence with a real project to appease the hypocrisy as a person dies of drought and poor access to the basic necessity of water as each cork is popped.
Instead the response was to produce another lamp shade, another table and another shelf. Seeing 5.5 designers at Bar Basso pissed off their faces, downing Veuve Clicquot from the bottle, I guess it is easy to forget any guilt, if any was felt at all.
Was design not meant to be about improving the world, solving problems and questioning the world we live in, not making endless plastic shit that only exists to be sold?
There are still serious problems in the world and society, why designers feel the need to constantly solve the problem of where I plonk my arse, over and over again, I don’t know. Why are the designers who are heightened to celebrity status those that, more often than not, design exclusive ranges for people who don’t need more stuff?
Yes eco design isn’t that cool and pragmatic design can be boring, but surely that is the gauntlet and challenge that should be tackled by the next generation of designers. Are they scared? Do they lack the holistic foresight or strategic thinking? Do they have a conscience? Or are we just all good consumers who like surrounding and defining our lives with stuff?
I echo the sentiments of Barbara Chandler; “It seems almost obscene to go around the fair and see more moulded plastic blobs”. Where is the progression, where is the agenda besides the illustrious search for profit.
Where are the next generation, open you eyes and your minds? Again Barbara Chandler nails it on the head
“surely they aren’t that shallow that they can be seduced?”
While I do not disagree with you about the many challenges mankind faces, I would like to suggest that perhaps you are approaching this subject from a difficult angle, that of within the design community, from “within design”. This Leads to a dilemma as what you see in Milan, produced by “Designers” does not ring true with your idea of what design should and has historically been.
There are plenty of people who are producing what you would call “good design” but perhaps the Milan Design Fair is not the best place to look for them. Surely its a bit like going to the opera in search of Cheryl Cole.