We had a lecture today held by Professor Mike Press. It was about how we designers can satisfy the consumer society we are living in. He mentioned plenty of good points how to sell our products successfully. According to his lecture for nowadays’ people is not enough to design an object but a whole experience. Like sitting in a chair, watching the sushi chef preparing the originally cheap rice or ‘shake hand’ with a car at the car shop when you grab the handle to open the door. Every single detail has to be perfectly designed to make the consumer obsessed with the product.
My concern about these things is that I’m seriously against consuming. This makes it slightly difficult to think about myself as a designer. At one point I have to make money from selling my products. But I believe there are so many things I can think about when I design something. Such as sustainability, packaging and motivate people to recycle my product when they don’t need it any more. For example give them 10 % discount when they bring them back and make something even better out of them.
I’ve always been obsessed with textiles and in the last couple years I became obsessed with saving the planet as well. During researches or just watching TV I received too much information about the problems around us. I realised that the trouble is much bigger than we think and the majority of people don’t care about it at all. So I keep asking myself if we have a future or not. We are acting like pests, put upon the planet. I think we meant to be living in consonance with nature but now there are too many of us and it’s getting impossible for the Earth to keep up with our needs, mainly because our expectations are getting higher and higher. I believe that some Third World’s people much happier than we consumers are. Even so clean water, enough food and medications should be available for them.
Most of the people in our society buy cheaper products, use them for a while and then buy new ones. All the old ones become rubbish. And that’s just the household waste but the amount of industrial waste is really frightening. I read a very interesting book about the waste we produce full with data and also with great stories how to live a different lifestyle. The title of the book is Free: Adventures on the Margins of a Wasteful Society by Katharine Hibbert. There’re also documentaries on BBC sometimes about the same problem. For example tonnes of food going to waste because people wouldn’t buy them. Like too small eggs (with the same amount of nutrition) or huge portions of cows ’because they are not pretty enough. I think it worth to think about that we send several tonnes of food to wastelands during on the other side of the world people starving.
My other concern is the packaging. I’ve done a research about the rubbish islands in the oceans for a project last year. I think that was the point when I stopped to believe in our future. The deeper I dig in the subject the scared I got. It’s worth to google it. Basically almost all products we buy packed in plastic. If you have a look how much plastic you put into your bin, you will realize what I’m talking about. The question is where all this plastic goes? For example into the oceans. Plastic will never disappear but is brakes down to very small particles and forms a huge territory of ‘plastic soup’ in the oceans.
Global warming is a very popular one so I won’t analyse it too much. It’s just unbelievable that a lot of people don’t ‘believe’ in it. Well it’s not Santa Claus. And anyway cars are definitely loud and stinky. I can’t breathe properly when I walk or cycle during peak hours.
My current project is about all these issues. It’s inspired by a fluffy plant I found at the Botanical Garden. There was something magical about it and I try to catch it. It also has little falling bits which remind me of fate loss and the end.