Friday Diary: Celebrating & Reflecting on Dieter Rams
- August 24, 2011
“Good Design Is Long Lasting” Exhibition
Phaidon Flagship NY
Core77 and Phaidon held a contest to celebrate iconic German industrial designer Dieter Rams work and his ‘less is more’ design principles. Rams was the head of product design at Braun from 1961 to 1995 and has been described as the yoda of design. His designs are commonly considered to have influenced the designs of Apple, Nokia, Muji and more – that clean rounded nonfussy most modern of aesthetics). The drawings are on display in a product timeline at the flagship store for the next two weeks.
Here is a reposting of Ram’s principles (color) with some of my own thoughts (grey/black) ; Their essence resonates far beyond the confines of design.
1. Good Design is innovative
It does not copy existing product forms, nor does it produce any kind of novelty for the sake of it. The essence of innovation must be clearly seen in all functions of a product. The possibilities in this respect are by no means exhausted. Technological development keeps offering new chances for innovative solutions.
I wrote an article a while back entitled “new lessons from ancient Japan”. In it, i refer to the term “kaizen,” continuous improvement (process focus) which Toyota embraces as a core value. Their motto: ‘the right process, the right result.’
I want to look at the word innovation. I like to check in regularly with words that become buzzwords to make sure they still mean something to me. So why do we need continuous innovation? Did we always need it?
There is no more ‘the way things have always been done’. Has iterative, motivated ($$, survival) change always existed at this urgent alarm-shrieking level? It seems like we can break history down into 3 phases where innovation changes from being a base ‘Maslow’ style need to a self-actualizing ‘nice to have’ Maslow style need. I’d say it goes something like this:
A. The dawn of man, -history, ancient Egypt, Rome, through to industrial revolution: continuous improvement, better tools, better solutions – all the time. Base impulse of humankind. Gets increasingly less urgent once we start lying around talking about philosophy through to committing mass genocide on several continents.
B. Next phase: 40′s on – years of trying to find solutions that last (excepting planned obsolescence of course) so we could rest and be happy fat cats. No need to innovate to survive.
C. Where we are now. Screw ‘innovate and stop, innovate and stop’. Back to the most urgent of loop to loop innovation in every day life.
Is continuous innovation a fact of modern life as well as a fact of primitive life? Is life now mimicking primitive life?
Mandate: how can we continuously improve and reassess, stay objective, keep questioning meaning?
2. Good Design makes a product useful
A product is bought in order to be used. It must serve a defined purpose – in both primary and additional functions. The most important task of design is to optimise the utility of a product.
I used to tutor a 6th grade kid with anger issues and I always said ‘use your resources’. I don’t know where i got it form but it was the way to get him on track when he began to get frustrated with a lesson.
Then I realized that I don’t always use my resources. I forget my resources and seek new ones to the detriment of what I’ve already gathered.
Sometimes things are just easy. Don’t make them hard. What do you already have?
3. Good Design is aesthetic
The aesthetic quality of a product – and the fascination it inspires – is an integral part of the its utility. Without doubt, it is uncomfortable and tiring to have to put up with products that are confusing, that get on your nerves, that you are unable to relate to. However, it has always been a hard task to argue about aesthetic quality, for two reasons.
Firstly, it is difficult to talk about anything visual, since words have a different meaning for different people.
Some designers I speak to don’t feel comfortable with words. My job is sense making in this arena. In others, my words are more essence than organization. Words are my output. On the other hand, i can barely draw a straight line.
Secondly, aesthetic quality deals with details, subtle shades, harmony and the equilibrium of a whole variety of visual elements. A good eye is required, schooled by years and years of experience, in order to be able to draw the right conclusion.
4. Good Design helps a product be understood
It clarifies the structure of the product. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory and saves you the long, tedious perusal of the operating manual.
Every practical interaction should be so easy so we can leave the talking and words for literature, criticism, love, and debate.
5. Good Design is unobtrusive
Products that satisfy this criterion are tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained leaving room for the user’s self-ex ssion.
6. Good Design is honest
An honestly-designed product must not claim features it does not have – being more innovative, more efficient, of higher value. It must not influence or manipulate buyers and users.
7. Good Design is durable
It is nothing trendy that might be out-of-date tomorrow. This is one of the major differences between well-designed products and trivial objects for a waste-producing society. Waste must no longer be tolerated.
8. Good Design is thorough to the last detail
Thoroughness and accuracy of design are synonymous with the product and its functions, as seen through the eyes of the user
9. Good Design is concerned with environment
Design must contribute towards a stable environment and a sensible use of raw materials. This means considering not only actual pollution, but also the visual pollution and destruction of our environment.
10. Good Design is as little design as possible
Back to purity, back to simplicity.
What becomes of the baroque? (it certainly shows up in contemporary television but where else does the baroque make sense?)
That’s all for now. (not the most graceful exit but it’s time to rest and after all this is a blog.)
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Introducing Our New Design Thinking Contributor, Kristina Drury of TYTHEDesign
I’d like to welcome Kristina Drury who will be talking to you on the 2nd Wednesday of every month about design thinking. She will introduce you to design thinking in her next post and from there on out, help you to solve challenges in your business and creativity using this methodology. We thought WWM could use an infusion of how-to about the topic of design research – which endlessly fascinates me – so I invited Kristina to help out. Luckily, she was happy to oblige so without further ado…
- Chauncey
Article written by Kristina Drury – founder of TYTHEdesign
Lately, the term ‘design thinking’ has become quite a catch phrase. You hear about companies using it to tackle challenges, meet the needs of customers, even re-brand whole countries. Through my posts on whatwomenmake.com, I’m going to show you design thinking techniques that can be put to use to by designers and non-designers alike to aid in any organization or project. I’d like to be resource for those of us in the female entrepreneur community.
A bit about me…. I am a passionate social and environmental designer. I began TYTHEdesign in 2010 after working in the social sector where I observed organizations struggling with challenges that sprung from unsuitable structures and/or inefficient communication strategies. After working with these groups, I saw that they benefited from a design-based approach. I felt it was important to use my skills to make a positive impact for the greater good. Working with non-profits and social ventures, we support their communication and organizational needs.
spatial organization and the design at the service window of a mobile soup kitchen (RV) in Brooklyn
Over the past year we have been fortunate enough to work with some great organizations including TEDxBrooklyn, Cleargreeen Advisors, SSBx (Sustainable South Bronx), and Crop to Cup. We’ve also designed organizational efficiency systems for a mobile soup kitchen, developed a life skills training program for women in a family shelter, and now we’re developing an after school program teaching life skills through entrepreneurship in the South Bronx. Here are some more of our recent case studies so you can see all the details.
Prior to that, I was the New York Chapter Head for Project H Design, a charitable organization focusing on product design for social change. I was one of the lead designers of one of their programs called Learning Landscape. It was an educational, active learning playground, built in locations from Tanzania to Mexico. It was featured at Cooper Hewitt’s 2010 National Design Triennial. I worked also as the Assistant Director at the Pratt Design Incubator for Sustainable Innovation, in the consulting wing of an organization that looks to support and grow social/environmental enterprises. We worked with with clients like UNESCO, WestElm and Starbucks and a series of small non-profits and entrepreneurs.
Look for my first tips on the second Wednesday of every month!
—-
KRISTINA DRURY is an expert in design thinking and the Executive Director of TYTHEdesign, a consultancy serving the social sector based in New York City. She has a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from McGill University and a Master’s in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute. Feel free to contact her if you have questions at all! She’s here to help.
Topical Thursday: Saudi Arabian Women, Drivers in the Dark
Introducing Sarah Cheverton, guest blogger and contributor to Women’s Views on News
It’s a great honour and a real privilege to be invited to feature here on WWM, a site in which I frequently finding myself losing many hours whenever I visit! Spaces that celebrate the contributions of women are vital to the ongoing success of the many international campaigns for women’s rights and for those of us committed to creating a world based on concepts of freedom and social justice for all. In this struggle, I believe that the personal freedom for women to express themselves creatively is equally as important as the achievement of broader social, political and economic freedoms. Moreover, it is often from the creative realms of art, design, photography or poetry, for example, that women share the experiences of oppression and their hopes for a fairer tomorrow.
As a writer, I am part of the fight for women’s rights particularly through my writing for Women’s Views on News, a global portal for news about, by and for women. I am delighted to be representing WVoN and women writers more generally here on What Women Make. This week, What Women Make shares an extract from a recent feature of mine on Wajeha Al-Huwaider, the writer, journalist and women’s rights activist who started the Saudi Women2Drive campaign. In the international women’s rights movement, Saudi is often referred to as ‘the world’s largest prison for women’, and not without reason. Women’s freedoms are significantly curtailed, as my article shows, not only in their inability to drive, but also to participate freely in employment or education.
However one thing that over 20 years in the women’s movement has revealed to me is that women often shine the brightest when forced to live in the dark, and the women of Saudi are no exception. I am delighted to have this opportunity to share with you not only some of my writing on one of Saudi’s most inspiring women writers and activists, but also the work of Saudi photographers and artists.
Favorite Saudi Arabian Female Artists
(I asked Sarah to give us her picks of favorite artists and photographers from Saudia Arabia. Here they are:)
self portrait by Saudi photographer Hind Masour Talal
“I find the stiletto heel as powerful a symbol of women’s oppression as others find the burqa”
photograph by Ranya Hani Jamjoom
“The over-sized eyes of the women in Tagreed Al-Bagshi’s paintings and the consistent themes of sadness and yearning for peace inspire and haunt me, in equal measure”
Painter Tagreed Al-Bagshi
article:
Wajeha Al-Huwaider, In the Drivers Seat
by Sarah ChevertonIt’s 2011 and I find myself writing a post supporting the right for women to drive in Saudi Arabia.
I write a lot of fiction in my spare time, but seriously, even I couldn’t make this shit up.
Nor would I want to.
My editor sent me a video interview with the inspiring Saudi women’s rights campaigner Wajeha Al-Huwaider.
The interview comes courtesy of the fantastic YouTube campaign, Honk for Saudi Women, which is encouraging men and women drivers from all over the world to post videos of themselves in their cars honking their support for the ban against women driving in Saudi.
Watching the interview, once again I find myself wandering amongst the many misshapen forms of contemporary global misogyny, feeling the familiar desire to twist each ugly little feature into something recognizable as sanity.
The only thing that rescues me from melting into an incoherent puddle of sailor-shaming curses is the calm, gentle and smiling certainty of Al-Huwaider as she smiles out from YouTube at me – silently beaming the message, don’t panic liberal England, we got this.
Al-Huwaider is a writer and journalist, a seasoned women’s rights campaigner, the co-founder of the Society for Defending Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia – which, among other things, campaigns against child marriage - and the winner of the 2004 PEN/NOVIB Free Expression Award. That’s just for starters.
If you don’t know what PEN is, first go and stand in the corner until I tell you to come out – take your laptop with you, I don’t want to lose my audience here.
Second, feel the enlightenment take root as I tell you that they are a society that exists to promote international writing and solidarity amongst writers from all over the world.
No, you can’t come out of the corner yet. Ok, you can, but don’t do it again.
According to her biography on the PEN website, Al Huwaider was “first banned from publishing in 2003″ (please note that ‘first banned‘ from publishing), having been a prolific Saudi journalist writing for the Arabic language daily Al-Watan and the English language daily Arab News.
On International Women’s Day 2008, Al Huwaider was arrested for uploading onto YouTube that video of herself driving, and a few days later, so was her friend and fellow activist, Manal Al Sharif, for the same reason.
And once again, spurred on by the free space that is still a small and well-loved enclave of the internet, an innovative human rights campaign was born, supporting women’s right to basic freedom in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi women, says Al-Huwaider are “treated like children…..they cannot take any decisions on their own.”
Instead, women’s freedoms come only through the involvement of a male guardian who grants permissions for all freedoms exercised, including the right to drive.
Flashback to Stepford anyone?
Without this written permission from a man, Saudi women cannot work, cannot study, cannot marry of their own free will – and they certainly cannot drive. The guardian can be any male, even the woman’s son.
“It’s totally humiliating.”
So with so many freedoms restricted, why have the campaigners chosen to focus on driving?
Simple. The right to drive underpins and I think, symbolizes the freedom of movement of Saudi women.
“Many women in Saudi Arabia don’t work,” Al-Huwaider says and one of the reasons is that they cannot drive themselves.
“If we are not allowed to drive, it affects the whole family, not just women.”
Al-Huwaider has faced many accusations that the driving force (I can’t help it) behind the campaign is coming from outside Saudi, but believes that this is just an opposition tactic – in part fuelled by those wishing to create a secular/Islamic divide.
“It has nothing to do with Islam,” she says of the tradition against women driving, “It’s not against the law…it’s just tradition.”
Despite this, women are frequently arrested for driving without permissions. Although not usually charged, in late July a 35 year old woman was reported to be preparing to face trial for the unforgivable crime of attempting to drive herself to hospital for medical treatment.
Of her critics, she says, “It’s so funny…we’ve been demanding that right [to drive] for more than 20 years…”
“Any woman who believes in women’s rights , especially Saudi women, please support us. We need you.”
Asked whether she will be able to drive freely in Saudi in her lifetime, Al-Huwaider smiles.
“I think so, yes. It’s going to happen soon.”
Insha’allah to that.
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Motivation Monday: The Richest Person in the World Soon To Be A She!
Yes, there should be more women on the Rich List, and yes, Georgina “Gina” Rinehart, the woman in question is an heiress (who more than likely works hard and shrewdly to keep that money growing) but so what. We’ll all give a private giggle and a smirk if the richest person in the world is a woman. How fantastic! And about time.
I don’t think ‘being richest’ is really the greatest goal one can have and I wouldn’t recommend that being your sole driving force. Yes we should achieve and have ample financial means for freedom, access, pleasure, and room to give to others, and yes we should be paid for our work at full market value, but the one with the most toys doesn’t win. Nothing is forever. And money can’t buy you love. But it’s pretty cool all the same after years of seeing men that look like this on the list
Yes, I left the stockphoto logo there on purpose.
Pretty…pretty…pretty… cool.
Go to the WSJ blog to read the article.
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What Women Make Presents: Japanese Illustrator Yoko Furusho
JULY 30 & 31 – Yoko Furusho is a New York based illustrator from Tokyo who, in her short career has already designed for brands such as Keds and Maybelline, agencies Lowe and TBWA, and magazines as diverse as Amelia’s Magazine to Princeton Architectural Press. She has had group shows and solo shows and is now working on a children’s book / iPad app and a charity project to help victims of the Japan earthquake among a million other things.
She was invited to show her work at traditional Japanese store, Ikiru, located in the heart of the Born neighborhood of Barcelona. She offered to come in person to do a live painting in their window – to the utter delight of the store’s dynamic press officer and the owner. We followed Yoko’s progress over the course of the weekend interviewing her about her inspiration, mesmerizing color palette, and the meaning behind her dream-like fairytales.
accompanying an article about Japanese people who come to New York
fine art installation pieces by Yoko Furusho
Go to Show Love to see more gorgeous videos, part of a collaboration between WWM founder and partner videographer, Peter Crosby to bring social content of the highest order to the best organizations and businesses out there.
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Monday Motivation: Mac gets Wacky with High Priestess of Photography Cindy Sherman
(and you can too)
Cindy Sherman is the newest Mac Cosmetics spokesmodel. Sherman was my very first introduction to art photography; At the tender age of 11 my sister bought me a book or her photographs for Christmas. I remember thinking one thing: creepy. But I was a mere innocent at the time. My brain quickly developed after that to register nuance and cultural reference which hopefully ripened with age and education.
Earlier this year Cindy Sherman sold a self-portrait for $3.89m (£2.4m) – the highest price ever paid for a single photograph according to the Guardian. While Missy, KD Lang, Rupaul and the rest celebrate difference and chutzpa, this reflects back to us our obsession with beauty and the sadness within – but only insiders will get the joke which I believe is Mac’s intent. Viva mac. Viva glam.
So this is your Monday Motivation. Throw away the self help books and ‘positive attitude’ and be just as weird and subversive as you really are as you work toward your goals this week.
A picture from Vanity Fair of past spokespeople for Mac:
Cindy Sherman for Mac:
Photos via hintmag
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Sunday Discovery: 6 Beautiful Custom Textiles & The Genius of One Social Business
The explosion of the Spoonflower community
Spoonflower allows craftspeople and dreamers all over the world – amateurs and pros both – to print their own fabric. This is the future and a hell of a lot easier than 3D printing at this point. See how one couple in North Carolina saw a need, had a creative idea, and made it into a thriving business. They also pepper their day-to-day operations with homemade videos of the fabrics, the process, how-to help, and their lives in North Carolina.
I’d love to hear from Spoonflower creator Kim Fraser, but nonetheless this is an interesting explanation of her great business idea and how her husband helped her make it happen.
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Design Spotlight: Favorite Female Designer Pieces From SCP
*Paula Arntzen “Grand Trianon” large chandelier made out of post-consumer coated Tyvek
I just got word from one of my favorite stores, SCP, that they will be at the New York International Gift Fair. SCP is one of the best of British design companies and has featured designs from luminaries such as Tom Dixon, Established & Sons, Jasper Morrison and sculptress Rachel Whitread.
Here are some female-led designs of SCP that I particularly love:
Rose Trivet / hot pad by Anouk Jansen (withstands heat of up to 220 C / 428 F)
and her teapot. I love this use of color against gray. It feels like a Goddard movie.
Then there’s this “Fold Unfold” tablecloth made with color creases by Margrethe Odgaard
an Anna Castelli Ferrieri’s Componibili round (which we happen to have in our apartment full of pots and pans in our pretty but small apartment)
and last but not least, a creation from Spanish design pride Patricia Urquiola here with Eliana Gerotto, a Cabochhe suspension light. The clear version is available through SCP, this gold one is available through Foscarini (Not 100% sure of this. Please check with both stores for details.)
photo via StyleCrave
You can see their 2011 collection at
Booth 3858 in ‘Accent On Design’
From the press release: We have some new designs by Donna Wilson; Bora Da, a range of throws and cushions, the Eadie armchair and the lovely Frank, Ernest and Henry pouffes in a new colourway, Treecloud Blue. Also on show are Lee Kirkbride‘s Calvo side table in walnut and Pelutho low table, as well as Kay+Stemmer ‘s Otto side table and Maude low shelves. And last but by no means least, paper-cut artist Rob Ryan has designed a charming height ruler. It measures up to 7 foot so suitable for adults and children alike.
SCP was founded in 1985 by Sheridan Coakley as a manufacturer and retailer of modern furniture. Inspired by the designs of the Modern Movement, Coakley decided to start selling classic and hard to find pieces and also try his hand a producing new designs in the same spirit. Over two decades from its inception, SCP is firmly established as one of the UK’s most innovative and internationally respected manufacturers and suppliers of contemporary design. SCP is also an acclaimed and award winning retailer, regularly voted as one of London’s finest design shops.
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