By Guest Blogger Brian Tenorio
John Maeda, in his book The Laws of Simplicity (The MIT Press, 2006), said design could take on one of three strategies: shrink, hide, or embody. While this may be significant these days as we churn out simpler, smaller, and more task-oriented devices and products, we are still creating new things. The new generation iPod meant to replace the older generations will do exactly that, replace the older units – still more stuff.
The Designs that Displace Desire (DDD) forum is a platform for discussing design solutions that encourage less consumption and emphasize the lasting value of existing items. Designs that Displace Desire is definitely not about poorly designed products that make you not want to buy. DDD is actually effective design that promotes thought, careful reflection, and a satisfaction or happiness in discovering new value in currently owned products. It can be a new use for an item that presents itself in a time-determined manner: for example, jeans that just look better after you’ve had them so long that they are worn out, eventually becoming irreplaceable. In fact, thinking about it, that may be one of the best examples of DDD.
So are we tasked here to think of how to design nothing or to stop designing? Not really. The goal is to create designs or experiences that stop us from constantly wanting other things.
In summation, since design can drive desire and consumption, it also has the ability to provide long-term satisfaction. The idea is not really about doing more with less, but doing more with what we’ve already got. Also while this call-for-comments may seem to be propaganda for anti-consumerism, it is primarily a call for excellence in design. Designs that determine satisfaction and contentment are about focusing on what we have and what we have acquired and not what we are denying ourselves.
What is total quality management? What is worse-is-better? What is value-creation? What is recycling? How will the economy be affected if non-consumption becomes popular (as it is not yet the case)? Why buy? Why not not buy?
Please leave comments and thoughts about DESIGNS DISPLACING DESIRE here or e-mail them to: info@briantenorio.com. From your comments we shall produce a more substantial article that discusses designs that stop at nothing.
Tehran-born, Filipino-American BRIAN TENORIO is a New York-based designer, multi-awarded in print and graphic design, business and entrepreneurship, and recently in accessories design (his label was included in the 2008 book 50 Must Buys in Manila). A former correspondent of Benetton’s COLORS Magazine, Tenorio finished the Managing the Arts Program at the Asian Institute of Management. One of Manila’s most influential and widely-publicized creatives, Brian Tenorio is currently with the Design Management Program of Pratt Institute. Visit his blog, Only Superlatives, at http://briantenorio.blogspot.com.
10 Comments on "Designs that Displace Desire"
I think essential to the designthinking of these products is the issue of shelf life. It is weird that things that should last longer like buildings and housing don’t (50 years) whereas plastic packaging lasts an eternity. The lifespan of many products and the calendar for their desired utility remains divorced
Quality vs Quantity of Design.
When I was a kid there was a type of mustard that we would often buy. The mustard came inside a simple, tall, glass bottle. That bottle actually would be reborn as a wonderful water glass once the mustard was finished. Who wouldn’t appreciate an extra drinking glass in their cabinet? I would admire those glasses as a young boy, and felt grateful to the mustard company for sending drinking glasses in our mustard.
I have never forgotten that feeling.
I feel that a cousin to the the idea of Designs that Displace Desire is Designs are Designs that Generate Gratitude, like my mustard glass.
If only the mustard people had focused on developing their brand as well, it would have stuck in my mind and I would without a doubt be buying it today to let my own kids piece these little marvels of consumerism together.
So on the same thought, if those jeans that look better as they age had been sold with a steel product label that also functioned as a bottle opener, wouldn’t that make the experience all the more pleasurable? Wouldnt the user be more engaged? Stamp the brand & logo all over the tag-turned-bottle-opener so noone forgets the author of the experience, of course.
Leon,
Thank you for your post! I, too, love what you call “little marvels of consumerism.” You’ve triggered a childhood memory of mine. We used to buy a jam that was packaged in a jar that could be used as a glass once the jam had been eaten up. I loved the idea that the jar started with one use and then became something new. I wish this was happening more today. However, I have a friend that I just noticed drinks her wine out of old glass jars of all sorts…I love her for this and I look forward to using up my current jams so that when I go to purchase my next jams I can take its packaging into consideration in order to also expand my collection of beverage containers.
Call it my plan to help out the economy. ,
Hence blended learning is effectively replacing e-learning. ,
from Desire’s Design
by David BarringerApril 22, 2008
AIGA.ORG
“Acting on desire is more like a craft, a science, an art. It takes careful, mindful practice. Be patient and quiet. Listen, observe, take notes. Figure out what you want, privately, and then choose to want it, publicly. Put your desire out in the open. I want to go swimming. I want to bake bread. I want to paint a picture. I want to build a chair. I want to write a book. And it’s better to start failing when you’re young, when all you lose is an ice-cream cone or a baseball game or an afternoon of fun. When you’re older, the stakes are higher. If adults don’t know how to want, then they lose a love, a career, a life.”
Pasted from aiga.org/content.cfm/desires-design
Its like going for designing with organic mind set. I mean the designs that grow (with changing needs). Like changing skins of cell phone hand sets and convertible sofa beds etc.
This is good, Brian. I particularly resonate with you on this: “DDD is actually effective design that promotes thought, careful reflection, and a satisfaction or happiness in discovering new value in currently owned products.” I am persona……lly experiencing that right now as I am taking stock of ALL my stuff …. and rediscovering simple things that have value or can be recylced/reused, and nicer, fancier things that once I thought had value but now am willing to pass on. DDD is also detachment from inordinate things, and how liberating it is to break the strings!
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