Anybody attending "We Don't Want To Make Things"

Just curious.

Lately I’ve been considering it permanently, at least due to the field I’m in. There are too many needless objects out there on the market. Everyone is in the market to make a quick buck by blowing through the research and development, design, and testing phases. I don’t understand why we can’t design products for consumers that will be an ongoing trend and last at the same time. Pretty sad

Word!

I do want to make things. I want to make things that are thoughtful, meet a valid need, last as long as appropriately possible, and beautify the world.

There is a lot of needless junk in the world, but if designers give up the fight, I think we’ll just see more needless junk than before. Design may contribute to the proliferation of stuff, but it also contributes to the continued use of and our emotional attachment to stuff.

I think the endless thirst for stuff is more a societal symptom than it is a cause created in part by designers. Design, like everything else, is a tool that can be used for good and for bad.

pretty simple!
taken out from here http://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=58
i highly recommend it

  1. If a company was to use the best known design and the best known materials, they would likely have a much higher production cost and would likely lose a competitive edge.
  2. If products were made to last for extended periods of time, people would not need to repeatedly replace, update and fix their items as much, and a vast amount of revenue and jobs would be lost by industry at large, slowing the economy.

This is, of course, unsustainable by definition, for the inherent inefficiency of the economic system eventually creates unnecessary multiplicities, waste and pollution.

The fundamental problem with consumerism is that the trends strike designs obsolete quickly.

Trends are basically planned mechanisms to promote obsolescence in order to keep the cyclical consumption going, otherwise, if consumption was to stop or slow down the whole system would get hit badlly.