Industrial Design and Crime

I always take the viewpoint that all of these projects will be done with or without me. Therefore, the best thing that I can do is be at the table and fight for the best design possible. Every job I left has proven that theory to be true.

Plus, I’ll remind you of something that I’ve seen Yo! post quite a few times: “Your career is a marathon, not a sprint.” (or something like that). Whenever I get frustrated with where I’m at, I just think of that phrase and the progress I’ve made so far. Today, we may not be in a position to run the projects the way they should be, but keep learning and you’ll be ready when you get the chance.

Because of some of the other topics on here recently, I’ve been thinking back on my career so far. If a punk Mr-914 had landed a design director position after 2-3 years experience, I would have been awful. I wasn’t detail oriented enough and that’s where most of the difference lies.

Don’t loose heart!

I should reread this book again. But, I’ll tell you…I have always been the one that sits on the side of the fence that found Papenek to be nothing but a pretentious asshole. My memory of his book is that he is writing about a Utopia that is not feasible in our world and he did it in such a condescending way that he shaped my belief in design…but in quite the opposite manner than I think he was trying to.

We’re INDUSTRIAL Designers. Fundamentally, we’re designers of things to be mass produced. To be consumed. Papenek’s book is for artisens and Libertarians who are looking to live in the woods and shun civilization.

Now, the fact that we’re designing things to be mass produced doesn’t preclude us from considering things for sustainability, recyclability, etc. But the premise that cell phones should be made out of hemp and that’s what is going to make the world a better place has always made me bristle.

(Full Disclosure: I am also a Purdue Graduate…albeit a few years after LEW…and had Papenek jammed down my throat for my tenure there.)

That’s always been roughly my take on it as well Jon.

A lot of designers love it though. Whatever works for you I suppose. I just found it to be a little too much talk.

Jon: In his defense, I remember Papenek saying that designers should take 1 year every 5 to do pro bono work to help people. I don’t think he was too far out of touch. My only problem with it would be where do I find this pro bono work?

Really? That’s not out of touch?

1 year out of every five to do “free” work.

It’s good for the soul, etc. But it isn’t realistic.

I understand his message…trust me, I struggle with this every day and I am even actively trying to do something that I believe can change the world (www.kijanitechnology.com). But, c’mon. 1 out of every 5 years?

Besides, why does it have to be pro bono? Design has the capacity to create jobs. It has the ability to develop new industries. It can teach and inspire. This can all be done AND put food on the table.

I would say it is optimistic, not out of touch. If I planned it, I don’t think I’d have trouble taking a year off every five.

As for the ‘pro bono’ aspect, it has to be if we make the assumptions that Papenek did. His assumptions were that the kind of designs that would really elevate people’s standard of living in the developing world are never going to be done because the people in need don’t have the money to pay for it. Furthermore, he assumed that these people in need were lacking design in order to truly solve their problems. Looking back, I would say he’s right on the first part and wrong on the second. However, I’m sure I would have fully agreed with him in 1971.

Lastly, he was an advocate for a certain kind of change. As such, he overstated things. That’s what advocates do.

From everything else that I’ve read and seen he seemed like a very creative designer and someone who got a lot of difficult projects done. That’s what makes me pay attention.

Nice piece of positive design work.

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2012/12/a-tumbleweed-like-toy-detonates-mines-in-afghanistan/266113/

very cool.

saw this on Boing Boing this morning, fits into the Papanek theme:

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/53588182[/vimeo]

Cool little product.

Poverty, gangs and crime are cultural problems.
Their root causes are much deeper than design can handle.

There is really no solution to this, specially not a morally or politically correct one.

Design can improve on sustainability, cost efectiveness etc. But this all has to come gradually step by step while still increasing profits and making the clients happy.

I am a firm believer that design methodology can be applied to create solutions to complex problems, including those outside of producing a product.

I certainly think it is a superior methodology to the scientific method as it isn’t necessary to test one variable at a time that is the heart of the scientific method. It is extremely difficult to quantify complex problems/issues as stated in the OP. A design approach or a qualitative approach can look at the problem as a whole and is more likely, I think, to succeed with potential solutions.

Well put and absolutely correct.

The older I get, the more and more I find that the design process can be applied to nearly any problem that exists in the world, whether simple or complex. Sometimes I find myself over-thinking extremely trivial matters around the house, drives my girlfriend nuts. Occasionally she appreciates it though. Pick your battles I suppose, haha!

A professor of mine at SCAD told us a story from a previous ID position she held. For whatever reason, she had about 3 months of no real ID work to do. Perhaps something to do with their manufacturing schedules, budget for new products, etc. So she was just earning a salary, sitting at her desk, being told to not actively develop new products at the time. Every day she drove into work, she and all the other employees would have to deal with this horrendously designed parking lot. Fender benders were a common occurrence. Water cooler discussions were always about “that damn parking lot”. Just poorly designed, so I’m told. She spent the next several weeks designing and perfecting the parking lot layout. Ultimately everyone loved it. Just an example.

Here’s a design solution for the gang violence:
backwardsgun.jpg
If you feel insecure about design now, just wait til you visit a Chinese factory! :smiley:

There is life after design. I felt the same way about designing mass produced landfill, so I wound up quitting my job and returning to the family bicycle business. I could not be happier, and the cool thing is all my experience with graphic, interior and industrial design has helped immensely when it comes to running the store and building a brand. I still do a lot of design work, developing our website, t-shirts and other marketing materials. I’ve designed and built custom bike stands, re-designed the sales floor and I’m constantly evaluating and improving our store’s look and efficiency. I’m even producing a television commercial!

I know it isn’t exactly solving the world’s problems, but I feel much better selling people health and fitness instead of nick nacks and other crap. So keep in mind the skills you have developed can be used for more than just mass production.

cool!

I hate reading comments like, " just wait til you visit a Chinese factory!".

I finally visited China this year and was completely energized by the experience. Here is a country filled with people that want to make new projects and take risks! Then I got back to my board room with people constantly looking to recycle mediocre 5 year old projects and complaining about how we can’t afford to develop anything new, the risks are too big. Give me China anyday!

China only does what we ask and pay them to do…

Same, every time I go to China I come back with a ton of ideas based on the manufacturing techniques I’ve learned about. I also feel like I learn how to design things that are more efficient to produce and assemble, leaving more BOM dollars to go into better materials and finishes.

When I was going 4-6 times a year to the same cities for 4 years or so it was amazing to note and observe the rapid change in the places themselves. It is not a static place.

But, we digress…

You’re not the only one who’s going through this phase! I went through it for about 2 years between graduating and few years post graduation…I couldn’t help myself thinking that everything I designed went straight to landfills. At some point I really wanted to design medical products, knowing that they strictly perform functions to save lives and whatnot…to help take off the guilt of designing another disposable product.

My thought started to slowly change once I read comments of consumers rating a product I designed sold on amazon.com. All this time while I thought I was designing unnecessary product soon-to-be-in-a-landfill, the products solved existing problems, delivered joy and performed its function for years to come. My company also conducts various consumer experience events, where we test and observe with consumers. We were giving out our products as a thank you gift, and one person came straight up to me and started expressing such joy in how a product I designed made a difference in her life. Sure, it didn’t save her life in a dramatic way, or added years to her life but that product assisted her lifestyle.

Even if you decided to leave your freelancing jobs, the show WILL go on. Someone will be replaced to continue design products. I start work by reminding myself to design things to perfection, as much as I can…I learned that there is no worse feeling in the world to have a mass-produced a really sloppy made product and say “this should never have been made…” or to read a 1-star comment on amazon.com

I think that is a pretty healthy point of view.

When I was first out of school I worked for a consultancy for a little over 4 years. There I worked on everything from medical pipetting robots, to surgical tools, to educational children’s toys, to footwear, eyewear, and time pieces. As much as I tried to get into the medical based product because of the good it did, it just wasn’t for me. I enjoyed, was passionate about, and found more meaning in doing the more culturally resonate type of product. It took a good deal of time for me to realize and come to terms with this. Year later, I remember standing on a BART train heading from SF to Berkley when something hit me like a ton of bricks. 4 people riding in that car of the train were wearing sneakers I had designed. It is a small thing perhaps, but for some reason out of the 1,000s of possible shoes they could have purchased, those one spoke to them in some way, and it felt good. I had a similar experience with a my mechanic wearing a watch I had worked on. I’ve had that feeling a lot over the last 15 years. For me, those brief moments of connection with people are just amazing. It is especially good when I’ve come across someone using a product I worked on that has ben out of production for some time. Then I feel like I’ve done my job. They have formed a connection with the product that has convinced them to keep it, to take care of it, to not throw it away for this seasons new shiny thing. That is a win for me.

In what I’m doing now, designing audio product from $20 all the way to $5,000+, there is this sense of connection with the music. The product is just a medium to get the user to a more perfect and transportive experience of taking in music. Music is one of those things, you could say it is superfluous, yet every culture produces music. It was present at the birth of civilization. I personally find a lot of joy in being a small part of the current instantiation of that human experience.

Everyone finds their own center of passion. I’m happy that there are people who love designing surgical implements, and water treatment devices, and all manner of things that people use. This is a diverse field. There are many differences among us. You can be who you need to be.

Everyone, (majority of people) at some point in their careers, in all fields, must ask if what they are doing matters. If the economic path they are taking has a positive or negative overall impact on the world at large. The activities a designer are part of the chain of making things and generating stuff, our actions have a tangible result.

To the original posters question, I am sure that the “stuff” we generate is the not cause or the solution to the above three issues. There are solutions to be found and creative minds are needed to find them.

I agree fully with this:

As a designer we practice finding these solutions for physical objects, as iab and Taylor point out, these skills apply to designing social outcomes as well.

On the secondary topic of making ourselves feel good about what we do. In our sphere of making things we control a lot of factors that impact people’s lives and the environment as well. We can choose different materials and processes that have different footprints. This is how I self-justify the work I do.

To know the processes and the factory conditions is key to developing more or less responsible ways of making a product. Walk through the factory that makes your product. In some cases it is a negative surprise, but you have the power to change that as well.

Example 1: The first products I designed and produced use a shiny lacquer finish, the industry standard. Volatile Organic Compounds, solvents emitted by the tons using a spray booth. One spec of dust and the product had to be sanded and repainted. That part of the factory was an awful environment. Step one was to replace the spray booth with a fountain or curtain coater, zeroed out the waste of overspray. Step two and the real solution was to design a matte finish. Tolerant of minor imperfections, no need for double coating. Became the industry standard before laquering was eliminated entirely through the use of texture raw materials.

Example 2: The company that I used to work for (Taiwanese owned in China) had workers manually removing plastic parts from injection molding tooling, reaching into the live cycling machines to do so. The workers with the knowledge of the supervisors had tied off the safety switches, so that the safety door could remain open and save time and energy. Nothing would stop the machine from closing with hundreds of tons of force. I had to raise hell with the owner and make repeated trips down to the floor to make sure that this practice was abolished.

Example 3: EPS machinery for helmets requires workers to stand on a wet board, between the huge hydraulic platens of the press in order to load the inserts in the molds. Dangerous, uncomfortable, loud work. I developed a new process of manufacturing helmets, huge press eliminated, assembly outside of the press on clean, dry well lighted tables. Less energy used, superior test results and a work environment that does not make you feel guilty when you design for product built in it.

Visit a shoe or boot factory and walk past the gluing line, walk into a screen printing room. The smell of solvents is so overwhelming, that it will make you question how you design your next projects and the processes you use. UV cure inks for example, powdercoating instead of painting.

There are options as a designer to make things better and have the same commercial result. If your role in life is to design things there are solutions to make a positive impact. If your main goal is to solve the big social issues, then product design is not the answer, but it provides an approach.