‘The more we consume, the better our lives will be…it’s a very seductive idea. But it’s also a lethal idea…the trouble is, as consumers, we don’t always know the real cost of what we’re buying…’Jonathon Porritt, 2007
Consumerism has massively contributed to the global issues that we are being asked to deal with today, such as global warming, the exhausting of many resources, sweatshops, child labour and low wages. Every year, 1.5 million computers and 3 million fridges go into landfill, in the UK alone. On average, a person gets a new mobile phone every 18 months. If all six billion people in the world were to live in the same way as we do in the UK, we would need two more planets to support their demands. In response to these problems, many designers have created ‘green’ alternatives to the everyday products that are to blame.
However, I believe that there is currently an over-production of ‘green’ and ‘eco’ products that aren’t truly sustainable and don’t solve the problem. Despite this shift towards responsible design being better than nothing, in that it has raised awareness of the issues involved, it could be argued that these products just add towards already over-saturated consumer markets. There are already enough pens, bags, and cups in the world. I feel that as designers, we should not be pushing more consumption.
‘Design for the other 90%’ could be a solution to the crisis that consumerism has created.
Designers can direct their talents towards making the lives of the ‘other 90%’ easier. Design can be used to combat disease, for example the ‘Lifestraw’ project. ‘LifeStraw, a personal mobile water-purification tool, is designed to turn any surface water into drinking water’ (www.other90.cooperhewitt.org/design). On the other hand, designers must be careful not to patronize these users, as they are in fact already designers, and have adapted the objects and materials around them in order to live. It is also essential that any new products created now address the importance of sustainable materials and methods for making, so that while helping to improve lives, they do not add to the problems we all face.
www.other90.cooperhewitt.org/designBig Ideas that changed the World: Consumerism, written & presented by Jonathon Porritt; produced & directed by Jane Cameron, Mentorn, Channel 5, 2007
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ReplyDeleteThis comment is not directed specifically to this blog entry, as the point I'm pulling out of it was mentioned a few times in the lecture that this entry relates to, but I don't quite understand how these products are patronizing.
ReplyDeletePut simply, I feel that if there is a person in the developing world who is desperate for clean drinking water, that they wouldn't take their chances with cholera and turn down a product like the Lifestraw because it was too patronizing.
Not only that but I don't understand at what level it is patronizing? If it is just me who cant see how it is patronizing, I may be naïve, but if it works then use it and feel a bit patronized. In the grand scheme of things it is the products functions that are important and whether they patronize doesn’t really enter into it.
The other product that was claimed to be un-empathetic in the lecture was the solar powered bag light. It was suggested that the designer had created something that promoted people to work through the night and this wasn’t very helpful, to make somebody work through the night, and therefore undesirable to the user. But if anything, this is exactly what the user wants and possibly needs; to survive they must work through the night. This is designing for the user personified.
Images can't be included in comments but here is a good picture:
http://images.publicradio.org/content/2008/05/23/20080523_lifestraw_crowd_23.jpg
Sam Tripp