Design, the Future & the Human Spirit Victor Margolin

Design, the Future & the Human SpiritVictor Margolin

1. Designers can work for the Public Good 2. Designers ‘ responsibility to contribute in constructive

way3. Ways designers can contribute?4. Prescriptive Scenarios

Design for Socially Responsible BehaviorTromp, Kekkert, Verbeek

Principle argument: Designers can facilitate Individual concerns to align with Collective concerns to act based on the larger Public Good

• Intervention methods: Can change, User determines category 1. Coerce2. Persuade3. Seduce4. Decisive

Strategies Based on Individual Concerns- pp 13-17

“In the 1960s I saw graphic design as a noble endeavor, integral to larger planning, architectural and social issues.

Aspen Design Conference1966, Paul Rand

What I realized in the 1970s, when I was doing major corporate identity projects, is that design had become a preoccupation with what things look like rather than with what they mean.

Citicorp, Citibank Identification Program,Anspach Grossman Portugal1975

What designers were doing was creating visual identities for other people - not unlike the work of fashion stylists, political image consultants or plastic surgeons.

Eye Bee M posterPaul Rand1981

We had become experts who suggest how other people can project a visual impression that reflects who they think they are.

P Rand 1956-1985

And we have deceived ourselves into thinking that the modernization service we supply has the same integrity as service to the public good. Modernism forfeited its claim to a moral authority when designers sold it away as corporate style.

http://www.designhistory.org/Post_mod.html

P Rand, 1985

“He invented the term Radical Modernism to distance himself from both the formal constraints of Modernism and the post modern label.”

http://www.designhistory.org/Post_mod.htmlTM Magazine Cover

DF, 1972

”a reaffirmation of the idealistic roots of our modernity, adjusted to include more of our diverseculture, history, research, and fantasy."

1994, D Friedman

House Interior, DF @ 1978

“His approach is eminently reasonable and certainly responds to the mix of tastes, styles, and ethnicities, that have asserted a presence within ouremerging vision of global culture.”

V Margolin

House Interior, DF @ 1978

“…design was in crisis and urged designers to see their work in a larger cultural context…”

3 Mile Island, painted lamp w found objects, DF @ 1985

PROJECTS OF OPTIMISMDan Friedman*

• Live & work with passion & responsibility.

• Try to express personal, spiritual, & domestic values even if our culture continues to be dominated by corporate, marketing, & institutional values.

• Choose to remain progressive; don’t be regressive. Find comfort in the past only if it expands insight into the future, & not just for the sake of nostalgia.

• Embrace the richness of all cultures; be inclusive instead of exclusive.

• Think of your work as a significant element in the context of a more important, transcendental purpose.

• Use your work to become advocates of projects for the public good.

• Attempt to become a cultural provocateur; be a leader rather than a follower.

• Engage in self-restraint; accept the challenge of working with reduced expectations & diminished resources.

• Avoid getting stuck in corners, such as being a servant to increasing overhead, careerism, or narrow points of view.

• Bridge the boundaries that separate us from other creative professions & unexpected possibilities.

• Use the new technologies, but don’t be seduced into thinking that they provide answers to fundamental questions.

• Be radical.

*p 209, Radical Modernism

Logo for exhibit: Radical Modernism, Moore College of Art & Design, 1994, Philadelphia

“Premature specialization in schools perpetuates a similar isolation in practice and works against the hybridization that is increasingly desirable in real professions.”

Does it Make Sense, Design quarterly. April Greiman, 1986