More Design Does Not Mean More Crap

When addressing the question of whether design influences or is influenced by the user, I believe that most good design is more the first because it should be a greater part service and a lesser part “setting the bar”. It is important in terms of progression for there to be room for the avant garde and the forward-thinkers, because without them all design would be circular and therefore nothing but modification without any innovation. However, this form of design for new expressions of form and discovery must take a second seat to design for a need. For example, it is all well and good for a designer to completely reinvent the way sixty percent of the art world reacts to form through studies in metal and plastic but what is that designer really doing? There was no empty void in the world that was gasping for a vase made completely out of one sheet of styrene, or a light that made it look like it wasn’t plugged in to anything. In many cases like these, the designer accomplished no great repair in the universe after the creation of their designs because there was no tear to begin with and therefore there is no one asking for a problem to be fixed.
This approach to how design affects a user ties in to the question brought up in class recently that asked whether it is wrong for us as industrial designers to introduce more into the world rather than addressing what is already there. There are plenty of things in this world that were designed ten, twenty, a hundred years ago and have not been redesigned since then that have problems and no longer function correctly in relation to how they did in the time in which they were created. It seems that especially now there are broader and broader problems arising that have become more on the tongues of regular people, not just the ultra-discerning or a limited few observers. Now is the perfect time for an industrial designer, not the worst, because it is now that people are starting to realize that things can fail, even if not especially things that by all assurances are not supposed to. There is a lot of mistrust in the world today but also a lot of willingness to become a community. Because of this, design has the ability to sway mass amounts of people extremely quickly; it is human nature to need something or someone to turn to when confused or in doubt and that is what people are now. It is our jobs to make sure that so long as we have people listening that we don’t sway them the wrong way, into mindless consummation, but rather show them what we can do to help.
This is not to say that there is anything wrong with being a consumer, as long as a person is conscious and responsible. It is only to say that I tend to think that the real purpose of us as industrial designers is to be the problem solver not the artist. There is room for aesthetic, there is no doubt about that, but if that is all that a design is, then just making a pretty piece of crap and getting it manufactured ten million times is really not going to do a whole lot to aid an elderly woman who is having increasing trouble writing down anything because of severe arthritis and pens she can’t hold, but it will look fantastic on her side table.