On Fashion

I've had some interesting discussions with friends lately regarding the Ikea Effect. A common criticism is that an Ikea couch is designed to last as long as it's in style. So why pay three times as much for a couch that will be obsolete well before it's time.

There's a very clear point I'm trying to make with this blog/book. It is critical, right now, that we stop seeing design as fashion and start delivering design that solves important problems. Virtually every design profession, worldwide, from architecture to apparel to graphic, has been based on the notion of design as an aesthetic endeavor for centuries. But the foundations of design are rooted in ethics, in shared information and progressively improving solutions to necessary problems.

We, in the developed world, are a culture of wants. Unfortunately, we all need the creative energy that has been long devoted to the wants of our culture, rather than the needs of everyone.

So I will only amend this from my post on the Ikea Effect. Both couches, simply because they are bound to the short term wants (fashion) of our culture, are worthless. For on the list of biggest problems in the world, "how to create a soft place to sit down" is significantly lower than "how to prevent the deaths of millions due to diseases with known cures."

The point remains, though, design can have a major impact on economies and we are, right now, desperately in need of economic solutions. We all, as designers, must now take responsibility for the economic impact of our decisions and start creating economically sustainable systems.