DUTCH DESIGN WEEK 2009
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"Most of the new designs flooding onto the market are failures," writes Alice Rawsthorn in today's International Herald Tribune.
"They're not especially efficient or environmentally responsible. Nor are they lovely to look at, to touch and to use, or any of the other things we expect from "good design." The grim truth is that most new designs are much more likely to be derivative, pretentious, ugly, cumbersome or wasteful. That's why buying some new products - cars and cellphones are regular offenders - is a dispiriting process of choosing the one you dislike least, rather than one you really love.
The odd thing is that no one sets out to design something that's mediocre. So why does design go wrong so often? Let's set aside the rational reasons why projects can fail - like budgetary constraints, deadline pressure and lack of talent - to concentrate on the scenarios that should be easily avoidable, but crop up again and again, with predictably dire results."
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Comments
In two words: delusional designers. Working with fashion designers, I have endless examples. Here's one sample.
A designer wants to produce tank tops (skinny strapped) for nursing mothers. She must be blind, deaf and dumb and lamentably, I failed to convince her that most (and I do mean most) nursing mothers have boobs too big to fit into a strappy tank. Even with a built in shelf, the design cannot sustain the weight. She stubbornly insists the shirt has widespread application. The average bra size is a 36C; this size cannot wear this tank. While I don't know the average bra size of the average nursing mother, one could rationally assume it'd be larger than this.
I knew another designer who wanted to make strapless (yes, strapless!) work out tops. Again, she stubbornly insisted it'd provide sufficient support for women wearing a D cup. Perhaps not surprisingly, this designer had no boobs. Rather, the top had so much padding it would have qualified as a flotation device.
At least in apparel, poor design is directly related to delusional designers.