I have been wondering how we as designers can look into the future. Or rather, how can we see the consequences of our actions and forecast what what effect they may have in the future; before we carry out our actions. Surely, this must be an ethical obligation we owe to the future.
How can we look into the future? Well this is one of those unanswerable questions that we face, and how we view the future has always been a mystery. Well it kind of was a mystery, till quite recently.
A hint of how we could understand the future came when I read two books by the psychologist Robert Ornstein. These were; The Axemaker’s Gift, that describes how at every stage of human history we have developed sequential and analytical processes, in order to develop tools (such as an axe) and as such have pushed into the background our intuitive and creative knowledge. The other book, was the Evolution of Consciousness, that delineates how the human brain was not designed, rather how it developed from a reptilian, to mammal. In other words, our brain developed in order to adapt to the immediate needs of our animal world around, and still does.
The scenario I drew up to explain the findings of these two books for myself is; when faced by a tiger in the jungle, our animal brain does not enter into logical and sequential thinking. Rather, we react and run for our lives. Yet, when faced by the slow degradation of our environment our animal brain is not able to react and instead puts off the recognition of our imminent destruction.
So maybe as designers we can find ways to look long term consequences of actions (since we have produced much of the crap that is choking up the earth). Maybe, we can see through the the life-cycle of our designs or the ‘social life-cycles’ of the objects of design?
What do you think?
For reference see:
http://www.robertornstein.com
http://ishkbooks.com/books/AXGI1.html
That’s the same analogy as when you put a frog in boiling water it will quickly jump out again. But if you put it in cold water, and slowly boil up the water, it will stay there and get boiled to death.
If I’m not mistaken we as human beings on this planet are actually feeling that the water is getting hotter (literally), and we are just trying to find out ways to jump out before it gets to hot.
It seems to me that these questions crop up all the time; how can we change our ways to change others?
We as designers know what we need to do different, and we (sort of) know where we’re going to end up if we’re not going to change (boiled). I think the real question is; How can we as designers use our (god given) creativity to lure people into jumping out of the boiling water?
Or did i just misinterpret your question?
The effect of Visual Communication as a social life cycle is not long lasting. Especially in comparison to Architecture and Furniture. The social life cycles of Fashion and Graphic design are short term. Fashion is liable to quickly changing trends and Graphics is maybe not long lasting because it is not useful in a practical sense (you can’t wear it or sit on it). Next to that they are mass produced and create pollution (during and after the production).
I wonder very much how we can see these great ideas of awareness in Design but it doesn’t change a thing.
Every day, we receive great and inspiring reminders on our behavior, in the form of a poster, advertisement, magazine or other design form. Though, the impact it has time wise, even if the content is strong and meaningful, is usually short. It doesn’t trigger us to act different than before. I believe that the profoundity of the message is important, but this alone isn’t enough. There is a gap between the message sent and -the existence of-new behavior. This trigger to create a social conscience isn’t there. Or here. I see some good examples around, but until now the examples i found which can fill up the gap are few. The ingredients are there but they are not in the same pie. I think that in order to trigger and apprehend learning new behavior it needs to work in the same way as we create a new pattern(of behavior) so they become rituals and traditions in society.
In psychology the transition process of old behavior into new behavior goes through different the stages of awareness being:
1. unconscious unaware
2. conscious unaware
3. conscious aware
4. unconscious aware
Concluding that it takes time and repetition to learn something new and create a change in pattern of behavior, a single action- a poster for instance- doesn’t have more than a one-time effect: 1=1.
I assume that we, or at least most of us are in ‘fase’ 2 of awareness or maybe 3. We have some knowledge of our behavior and we have a clue of the problems going on. If not, then the message/content in the design will bring that, which is something that is in the message anyway (in mine at least)
What we need to achieve is going from 1=1 to 1+1= 2 where the [plus] stands for the interaction, which is missing in most Visual Communication. So we integrate the interactive element into the design, actively involving the user. By ‘implementing’ the user in the right way, using play and happiness; making it fun, he will do the last part, which is creating the hype and continuation of the behavior. Not only for himself, but also ‘educating’ others. Having achieved that we have created 1+1=3 (or more) where the outcome represents the surplus value being the continuation. The creation of a social conscience.
In Design terms the formula of the perfect ‘design message’ looks something like this:
profoundity+quality+viral+repetition= Creative Pay it Forward within a Social context.
I wonder if it is to do with how we design things to be unnoticeable. (My example of this is the extra electricity sockets you gain by buying a socket extension cable. Suddenly you can have a TV, DVD, Video, stereo, radio, CD player etc,. all plugged in to one socket, all with their standby lights on waiting for remote control commands. We don’t notice this. How many of these do you have in your home? Do you know? Have you noticed?)
Perhaps if we could design all things to be more complex (rather than more simple/easy to use) it would kick in a different part of the brain – one which may question our own actions.
What do you think?
Julia
When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window.
Although, at the first glance, we may consider the poverty as lacking of the food, goods or money but in my opinion, poverty means lacking of the knowledge.
Old-fashion manners, War, terror, violence are based on lacking of the knowledge. Maybe by finding the common language of mankind be able to open the. According to an Indian proverb :
Poverty makes thieves, like love makes poets.