Forgive me father, for I have sinned

The breaking news were delivered by German weekly newspaper Die Zeit: Philippe Starck is “fed up with his job and plans to retire in two years”. The renowned designer went on further to claim that “design is dead and his work ‘unnecessary’”.

Well, there are people who hate the French designer and others who adore him, as is the case with star names in any business. Some of those tree huggers out there might even be celebrating. Blogs are filled with outraged people arguing that they will not accept Starck’s confession, for he has done so much damage and made so much money out of it. I will approach this piece of breaking news from another angle.

Change is good, and there is no right timing for it. It is great that Starck had his sudden change of heart today, rather than tomorrow. His confession is to be appreciated.

However, there’s another problem here, which is the content of the confession. One could still feel the arrogance in words like “in the future there will be no more designers”.

It seems like Starck has made a thorough analysis of what he has been doing, but not of what he could do in the future, using his skills. He still thinks that there is only one way of designing–which is his way–and now that he has realized it is causing too much damage, he thinks the world will be better off without it.

What he misses is that there is a whole lot more ways he can design, and help reduce his past damage while doing so.

I am not going to advise him to take a look at what socially and environmentally responsible designers from all around the world have been up to.

I am actually going to recommend him to take a businessman, named Ray Anderson, as his role model. Mr. Anderson has had his sudden change of heart about a decade ago, and instead of throwing in the towel, he has continued doing what he does the best, but this time doing it responsibly.

Take a look at this excerpt from the documentary ‘The Corporation’, and see for yourself.