Fast-realized design ideas challenge mass-produced industrial designs

This post is a quick English translation of an article I originally wrote in Turkish, which was published by Radikal Newspaper's monthly Design supplement on 31 January 2010.

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"Always go to your customer with at least three alternatives" is perhaps the most well-known advice given to design students as they prepare to embark on their professional career. The initial stages of a typical design process indeed witness a quantitative variety in alternatives. But as the process draws to a close, the number of ideas in consideration gradually decreases, eventually falling to one. Quite naturally, this decrease is quantity assumed to give birth to an increase in quality: after all, the commercial world's first and foremost expectation from designers is unique and flawless designs that are apt for being manufactured by the error-intolerant process of mass-production.

While a typical design process displays the above characteristics, a number of recent examples of practice suggest that some designers choose to maintain a contrary approach. These designers are not interested in providing the 'customer' with a single flawless design idea that is to be mass-produced. Instead, they are in pursuit of realizing as many of their design ideas as possible, with or without flaws. This is precisely why they strive to finalize their design processes as quickly as possible. They steal the notion of 'rapidity' away from the industrial context, where it typically connotes a 'systematic efficiency' and 'perfection.' Fostering an affection for intuitiveness, they bestow this notion to the studio-workshop realm. Thus they shift focus away from working for industrial mass-production toward fast-realizing their design ideas.

The first project which I believe exemplifies this recent trend is ”speed-furniture” by the Israel-based design studio Godspeed. These designers conceive and finalize each of their furniture designs within a duration of only one hour. They use scrap pieces of wood reclaimed from carpenters in Tel Aviv as raw material for their designs. A similar example from the field of furniture design is Martino Gamper's "100 Chairs in 100 Days." The London-based Italian designer maintains an approach akin to that of Godspeed to create brand new chairs using material he locally reclaims. As part of his design process he uses some pieces just as they are, while he subjects others to radical changes according to new roles he conceives for them.

The cover of Şerifcan Özcan's Ten Plus One project portfolio

For diversity's sake I now want to mention an example from graphic design: The New York based designer Şerifcan Özcan's ”Ten Plus One.” The project comprises eleven different design ideas, realized from scratch in eleven hours. Özcan says what led to this project was nothing but the pressure exerted by a school deadline. Upon realizing that he was short of projects for a thick enough portfolio, the designer came up with the idea for ”Ten Plus One.” Ironically, the designer was even contacted by one customer who was interested in buying one of his 'one-hour' designs.

As suggested by the above examples, the approach that I have called 'fast-realized design ideas' follows a process which ensures the full execution of design works within a short and/or limited time frame. As part of such process, the traditionally distinct phases of 'design' and 'production' merge into one another, blurring the distinction between the notions of 'prototype' and 'end-product.' It can easily be argued that these works compromise on the characteristic of 'flawlessness,' which is essentially assumed of the end-products of a conventional design process. In fact, the very flaws caused by these unique fast design processes often serve as a positive quality; an 'added-value' of sorts. It is this phenomenon that places such works somewhere in the intersecting worlds of arts, craft and design.

A packaging design from Şerifcan Özcan's Ten Plus One project portfolio

Are these designers influenced in any way by a specific stream of critical thought? At first glance we can suggest that designers have, with the aid of the recent crisis, finally acknowledged their historical role as consumerism's driving force. In the light of the above examples, could we not suggest that designers have realized that the relentless demand imposed on them by the industry for creating 'flawless' and 'unique' designs has turned their creative process into a vicious cycle? It is possible to argue that by hacking those two key notions of 'flawlessness' and 'uniqueness', these designers aim to break the creative bottleneck and the above mentioned vicious cycle. More cynical views may suggest that these designers instrumentalize the prestige often attributed to 'designed' objects. Some may go even further to argue that they exploit this prestige, not unlike what their 'star designer' colleagues have done throughout the last few decades, this time through a more underground manner; with a touch of 'planned imperfectness.' Whatever perspective we may maintain as we look at this trend, what all of its examples boldly underline is that we are witnessing a reversal of the traditional hegemony of 'product' over 'process,' whereby the latter is on the rise as the more valuable asset compared to the former.

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Reflections after the 2009 Stockholm Furniture Fair

Those of you that are obsessed with furniture fairs, and have missed the Stockholm one that took place recently, can sit back and relax. Call it the crises or a design-bottleneck, what I have seen during my recent visit to the Stockholm Furniture Fair was not so satisfactory. However, a couple of projects I stumbled upon at the fair helped confirm an emerging trend I have been observing in a number of design fields. It is a trend I call by the name "mass-production of design ideas"--artefacts that are executed within a very limited timeframe—where, this very characteristic of the artefact's design process is also being used as a way to promote it.

One example to this trend comes from the Israeli design studio Godspeed, who exhibited at the fair a furniture series by the name "speed-furniture". To describe briefly, the material used to make these pieces is waste wood that had been reclaimed from Tel Aviv carpenters. How this project specifically relates to our trend is that all "speed-furniture" is produced from scratch within a time limit of one hour.

Another example from the fair to what I call "mass-production of design ideas" was a project carried out in University of Gävle's 'Design and Wood Technology Programme'. Here, participants of a ten-day workshop produced unique pieces within this limited timeframe. Similar to Godspeed's case, they had defined material limitations too, using only lycra and birch.


Of course, these two examples do not stand alone to represent the trend we have been discussing. Another example that comes to mind from the field of furniture design is the "100 Chairs in 100 Days" project by Gamper Martino. For the sake of diversity, another example I'd like to give is from a graphic designer named Serifcan Ozcan, who has created a ten-hour portfolio of ten works, by generating a new project each hour-- and, afterwards, ironically sold one of those projects to a client. I would prefer not going into further detail about these since both projects could be studied in detail via the hyperlinks I've provided. I would rather use the rest of this entry to give my own viewpoint on this emerging trend in design.

According to my interpretation this phenomenon has several sides to it. First of all, designers have been realizing, for a good while now, that they are not only designing for mass-production, but also mass-consumption. With the ongoing crises, designers are very well aware of the fact that they have long been operating along the paradigm of the throwaway culture. Therefore this approach to design might as well be their reaction to this very paradigm.

A more cynical view might suggest that an increasing number of designers are aware of the prestige that is attached to the 'designed' object. They might as well be exploiting this opportunity, much like star designers have in the past two decades, though this time in an underground fashion, with a 'designed sloppiness' approach.

A view based on the labor and economics side of things, which is not very far away from what we have discussed in the above paragraphs, could provide another interpretation. As manufacturing processes become more automatized and globalization of capital is on the rise, the traditional definitions of blue- and white-collar labor are going through a major shift. The flexible markets and the conditions brought up by globalization are pushing forward for a shift in the division and distribution of white-collar jobs. Today businesses talk about the outsourcing of consultancy work, such as design—just like they were starting to talk, a few decades ago, about the outsourcing of manufacturing (blue-collar). Design is increasingly being given as a by-product of the whole consultancy package provided by companies. This is especially evident in the services offered by competent businesses from developing countries.

The examples we have discussed above, might be considered as one type of reaction to these recent phenomena. Can there be another way to react? Ronald Jones suggests the "experience design approach" as another way, where designers develop their skills in an interdisciplinary manner, and move away from an object-oriented practice towards one that focuses on creating intangible commodities. In his article "Are You Experienced?" he provides more insight to this :

its [experience design as a 'business art'] emergence will quicken as China and India begin acting on the obvious, giving design away for free because their economic advantage is with mass-manufacturing, not designing prototypes for mobile phones. China and India’s efficiency at mass-producing physical commodities frees up small but growing sectors of the Western design community to create and distribute intangible commodities, including experiences.

In the wake of these recent phenomena, what is your take on the future? Will we see a furniture fair where exhibited pieces are being designed and executed in real-time? How about an 'experience fair' of "intangible commodities"?

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Pay As You Murder

I don't feel like writing too much about the image you see below. The scene, captured last August, is from a store that belongs to one of the largest supermarket chains in Turkey.

It may be true that nationalism has always had its place in recent history as the basis of a niche market. However, current affairs of the last decade have been used as an excellent opportunity on which such ideas have thrived exceptionally, hence a field day for some people. Turkey, showing a similar "progress" along the same lines with most countries in the world, has been the setting to a race among institutions to see who could erect the largest flag. The demand for the national symbol grew exponentially during the course of a series of national rallies. Someone spotted the trend and worked accordingly: A section for Turkish flags; the mass consumption of nationalism.

In the wake of the recent events in Turkey, I believe today it is more meaningful to reconsider what everyday scenes like this one really tell us. I'm not knowledgeable on what kind of deals are available from this store, but I'm quite sure we can all pay as we murder.

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An evening with the maker of 'The Story of Stuff'

Annie Leonard, the genious behind the short movie ‘The Story of Stuff’, was in Istanbul on May 31st for a screening of the movie. I was among the few lucky Istanbulites–nothing related to being invited, due to people’s lack of awareness!–who were able to watch the movie with her, after which, a Q&A session took place.

I already had a question in mind as I approached the movie theatre, since I had watched the movie several times–thanks to its brilliant webpage. What preoccupied my mind was about something which I had come to realize after looking at what socially and environmentally aware thinkers has said back in the 50s and 60s: We today cannot help but refer greatly to their studies, go against what they’ve gone against, and circulate around the same terms: Corporatism, consumerism, planned & perceived obsolescence, etc.

After this analysis, my question to her was about what she would give as an answer to what I keep asking myself: “Have we failed in coping with these menaces, and if we have, what has gone wrong?”

Annie was so sincere to avoid merry optimism, and agree with the fact that we have been failing and going worse. She strongly emphasised that having a soft spot for green issues is not enough, and the important thing is to see the big picture, “the economic undermine”, as she called it. Feeling the need to addressing my general criticism on a personal level, she underlined how she sees her contribution to the movement to be: She said that, most important of all, she feels responsible to the world as a U.S. citizen. Because, she added, besides all the export of garbage the U.S. has been carrying out in the course of the last 50 years, she pointed to the fact that her country has also been increasingly exporting its way of thinking and lifestyle. She told that this is what particularly worries her the most, and it has recently been approved when she saw “20 billboards of Sex and The City in the Istanbul Airport”.

Well, I think she has definitely had another major contribution: Articulating these issues with a very down to earth tone, in an easy to grasp and accessible format. Follow this link to another article to learn more about her work.

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Back to the future: Lessons from half a century ago, for brighter prospects

I have been developing a special interest in looking into the WWII and post-WWII years alongside a general investigation into green issues. I believe there’s a lot to learn from that period of history, which was more or less when our present economical order was established. (I have previously written about Utility Furniture, a British government scheme carried out during and recently after the Second World War.) Two books I have recently read—The Waste Makers by Vance Packard (1959), and The Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)—made me rethink what we today have no problem to settle with.

When I first came to London, I was quite amazed at what I saw in the capital’s parks. I was able to walk around with the company of squirrels and foxes, sharing the greens with them. Thinking of thousands of cats and dogs wandering around in cities in my native Turkey, this was quite a paradigm shift in terms of what a metropolis can accommodate as street animals. Reading Silent Spring further startled me, when I learned about how normal it was to have many other animals as part of urban life in the sixties. This book was written when this natural harmony all started to fall apart, it includes some of the first resistance attempts against cruel industrialization:

The ‘control of nature’ is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man. The concepts and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science. It is our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the earth.

If a visit to the electronics store today still gets you all mixed up, welcome to the club. Nowadays, it requires a good deal of effort to keep up with the pace of “development” in consumer goods. Nevertheless, one has to admit that no matter how amazed we might get at these new products, we have adapted so that we now accept that, for instance, an appliance we buy today will be out-dated in 6-12 months. But The Waste Makers was written at a time when concepts like “the consumerist society” and “planned obsolescence” were just introduced and still subject to debate. Therefore, like Carson, Packard finds things, which we are nowadays dull about, very difficult to understand:

How can the modern consumer choose plywood furniture intelligently—in the absence of a wood-labelling law—when wood labelled ‘driftwood walnut’ or ‘silver oak’ contains neither walnut not oak?

These two books belong to a time when people did not settle with the life the “common” understanding of economic growth and development had to offer them. It is a pity that nowadays that understanding is more or less the same, but the majority of people are okay to settle with it.

One question comes up after reminiscence: Did it, and does it still, have to be this way?

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