Another designer mentioned that to me once but wanted to know what it meant. What do you guys think?
If you like to flaunt your profession, anything is a lifestyle. You may have a certain taste because of your industrial design background, but not all choose to show it.
I’m not sure I follow about flaunting it??? I mean I think I’ve seen some that do attempt to flaunt it, but I don’t think this is where the post was going.
For some people ID is just a job, but for others it is part of their lifestyle, and for some it may even border on obsession. This can happen with any profession. It’s really just about loving what you do. It may lead: to troubleshooting projects in our free time, freelancing on the side, doing personal projects(just for fun or to sharpen skills), and often to an extra picky choice in the objects we choose to be part of our home and surroundings.
Really when it comes down to it there are a lot of other careers we all could have chosen that promise more money and a more stable way of life, but most of us chose ID because we felt it was a calling, we wanted to work in a creative field, we love design, it’s cool, we like to draw, etc.
something like that
Anyone see the NY Times Magazine this weekend. Featured some designers (not product but architecture etc.) that looked just like everyone else although very well known and successful.
My point: this idea of lifestyle… get over your self. Design is important in your life but so aren’t many other things.
Frank Gehry looks like one of my uncles, like he should be mowing the lawn in his black socks.
Contrast that to Karim Rashid… hmm.
People still confuse lifestyle with appearance. Lifestyle can be a lot of things. Green Designers may recycle alot at home. Maybe they think about recycling all the time. Whenever they see a bottle on the street they collect it to put it in the correct recycling container. They talk about recycling all the time and read alot of stuff about it. They try to convince their friends to recycle and maybe even get involved in local government projects involving Green Design.
They don’t have to wear a black turtleneck to make their design interest a lifestyle.
It not so much a lifestyle as a mental illness. Beside the mentally ill who else spends half their waking life staring into space blankly contemplating the yet to be realized or as some see it “an imaginary world”?
half?
Ok maybe more like 3/4
i am planning to double major, i would like to major in industrial design and architechural design and i was curious if this would be a very smart move as design goes or am i wasting my breath
it’s interesting that some people think industrial design is a life style. any profession can become a lifestyle if you push stereotypes or create them just because it fits the criteria.
three years ago after 9/11 i was in east bay and walking down the street. i saw this car making a quick turn into a cross street that was a residential area where a lot of kids play in driveways, sidewalks and sometimes the street itself. then i heard this woman, apparently a concerned mother shouting to the car “presidential baby, presidential”. that was her way of saying drive slowly. she was suggesting a lifestyle. i just laughed and thought i never heard that expression before in my life. how the hell did she come up with that. yeah i can imagine the president and his escorting entourage going down the street which was ridiculous. but i guess it made sense to her at that moment.
i guess as an industrial designer some people have experienced the same thing. at least i have.
so next time you see a designer you might as well say something funny like “accidental baby, accidental”.
[quote=“Anonymous”]Anyone see the NY Times Magazine this weekend. Featured some designers (not product but architecture etc.) that looked just like everyone else although very well known and successful.quote]
okay…and… I see how outward appearance and dress can realte to a lifestyle, but do not see how in this case it would dictate one.
Design is not a lifestyle- it is a passion. It is something that you like to do whic is to create and impact the world. You can be a surfer living your lifestyle in Hawaii or Tahiti and be a great designer at the same time. If you think it is a lifestyle, then you are loser!!!
oh be nice!
It’s a lifestyle for me, and it has nothing to do with staring into space imagining products.
Don’t confuse design-as-lifestyle with design-as-career.
It’s about organizing your life around the same principles you advocate as a designer. It might mean you spend a little more money on a product that delights you. Or about lifelong-learning and experiences in a great many things. It’s about attitude and ethic. It’s the way you think and talk (practice makes perfect after all.) It’s about spending an idle moment to visit Core and post this! For some people, it means wearing nothing but white suits (Karim) or nothing but denim (Kamen.)
That said, I know some amazingly talented designers that don’t live this lifestyle at all: they leave their designer hat at work and drive home in their Chevrolet. It’s part of your fabric or it isn’t, but it doesn’t really say anything about your talent.
Right on.
I’m with cg.
Not all designers think the same way but when I need to go buy, lets say a new spatula, I can’t help but think I won’t be buying another one of these for like 15-20 years, so doesn’t it deserve some time, then I think, man, there are a lot of spatulas, how many peoples livelyhood rests on designing these things. Then I think, if I designed a spatula I would hope that people appreciated, then after driving to like 50 stores my wife gives me that look like, you better freaking pick one at this store…
OK I gotta get a life, but I just can’t help it.
alternatively you could use the internet to find any design you want even those that aren’t carried in any store!!
however, i wonder if some spyware will spy on you for some consumer info/credit company and categorize you as a person that follows the designer type lifestyle. hey this dude just purchased one spatuala after visiting a hundrd websites- he must be design oriented!
it’s the future trend and you can’t do anything about it. the tag on you will make companies millions of dollars each year and the more they identify your habits or interests the better their chances of grabbing a share on your wallet. infact they’re taking advantage of your admission to such a statement like “you can’t help it” without your consent or even consciousness.
i don’t know how crazy it’ll get but if some sort of authority doesn’t stop this violation into privacy (which they probably don’t have the balls for anyway) people can be turned into these readymade consumers that will never fail to purchase a designated product.
it’s the smart alternative to monopoly for comapnies who are accused of monopoly and they’re moving in that direction.
say word
My name is IDiot and I approve this message
I bet many here will have my same point of view, or at least a better worded one.
Design for me is life itself. I know it may sound cliche or whatever, but I always remember since I was like 9 years old analyzing car interiors, rating them on their ‘design’. I would stare at products that somehow intrigued me with their ‘good’ design. Now I practically analyze the design of everything I look at or use, note its shortcomings/advantages. I like to look at beautiful things and figure out what makes their design so effective. In other words, design is intertwined in my daily life. Even my girlfriend makes fun of me by saying ‘is that a bad interface?’. So perhaps its not a lifestyle, perhaps it is. All i know is that it is always present.