|
Review of Victor Papanek, Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (New York: Van Nostrand Reingold, 1984). Reviewed by Hiroaki Tanaka "Design for the real world - human ecology and social change" was written by Victor Papanek in 1971, who passed away at age of 72 this January. Papanek had traveled around the world giving lecture about his ideas for ecologically sound design and designs to serve the poor, the disabled and the elderly. Throughout his career, he has tackled environmental issues from the perspective of the designer. He created product designs for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the World Health Organization, for example, a 9-cent-radio-receiver that brought radio to the wilds of Indonesia and an irrigation pump made of rubber tires for Africa. Although it was published more than two decades ago, this book still gives us thoughtful explanations on what he thought design is all about and what designers should do. While reading this book, you would explore his philosophy in design. It may let you realize a new aspect of design and designers. This Papanek's instructive book shows how design can reduce pollution, starvation, overcrowding and other modern society's illness. He leads us away from this profits-oriented world towards a new age of morally and environmentally responsible design. Papanek suggested the necessity for designers to adopt a morally responsible approach, adapting technology to the individual's real needs. "The ultimate job of design is to transform man's environment and tools and, by extension, man himself," Papanek said in the book to define design. On the other hand, he adds that since designers shape the environments in which we all live, the tools which we all use, designers have important responsibilities. Papanek also says designers should remember where to start: "The Industrial Designer began by eliminating excess decoration, but his real job began when he insisted on dissecting the product, seeing what made it tick, and devising means of making it tick better - then making it look better. He never forgets that beauty is only skin-deep." Usually we think designers just create new things. And if we have any complaints about a thing we use, most of the time we blame the company that sells it. However, Papanek's ideas are unique; all the things around us have been created by designers; designers' responsibility would go far deeper than just "beauty" at the market level and "consumer satisfaction"; there should be always the social and moral responsibilities of the designer. In fact, he admits he didn't have those ideas from the beginning. His first job after leaving school was to design a table radio: the design of the external covering the mechanical guts. He was young and, frankly, impressed by designing it. It however didn't get his mind long. "It was my first, and I hope my last encounter with appearance design, styling, or design 'cosmetics,'" he said. While he didn't deny that the designer bears a responsibility for the way the products he designs are received at the market place, he says, "The designer's social and moral judgment must be brought into play long before he begins to design -- his design will be on the side of the social good or not." In the book, Papanek gives us a lot of concrete examples on how designers affect the society. According to an extrapolation of the Vehicular Safety Program at Cornell University, if the designers decide to move the car ashtray just 11 inches to the right, in order to establish greater "dashboard symmetry," the result would be that twenty thousand Americans killed outright and another ninety thousand maimed on our highways within five years -- almost an eighth of a million deaths and major accidents, caused by the driver being forced to reach just 11 inches further, thus diverting attention from the road for an extra 1/50 second. This is a very powerful example. The only 11-inch-difference made by designers would result in such a tragic outcome. Papanek maintained that few designers seemed to develop the type of products really needed. Because sometimes the interests of the Establishment prevents designers from facing the reality. In 1969, some design schools competed to design housing environments for the ocean floor. And it was followed by another program to design an entertainment center to be erected on the moon. But the necessity of today shouldn't be neglected for the expediencies of some dubious tomorrow, he said. Design competitions like those are usually assigned because they are more glamorous, "glory jobs," more fun than coming to grip with real problems. It is also in the interest of the Establishment to provide science-fiction routes of escape of the young, lest they become aware of the harshness of what is real, he added. Therefore he insists designers should have an eye to see through what is really necessary for the society and young or prospective designers need good education. "Education for designers is based on the learning of skills and the acquisition of a philosophy," he wrote. Papanek however admitted that the skills they teach are too often related to processes and working methods of an age just coming to a close, and that the philosophy offered at school was an equal mixture of the kind of self-expressive bohemian individualism in a profit-oriented, brutal commercialism. "The main trouble with design schools seems to be that they teach too much design and not enough about the social, economic, and political environment in which design takes place," he said. Papanek himself was dean of the school of design at the California Institute of Arts. As a professor, Papanek seem to have struggled looking for the way how he could lead young designers in the right direction. In the book, Papanek's logic is very precise. he outlined briefly six important areas in which the discipline of industrial design was virtually unknown(when he wrote this book in 1971.) Those are as follows:
1: Design for Underdeveloped Areas They are six possible directions where, he said, the design profession not only can but must go. In the book, however, he said designers have neither realized the challenge nor responded to it so far. Because two decades have passed since this book was published. So some areas Papanek pointed out may have been solved and other aspects should be added by now. However, the way he explained his points was very clear and persuasive by citing concrete examples for each area. Besides, what is interesting is that some of the areas he mentioned still make sense nowadays. Since it is interesting to read Papanek's unique philosophy in design, the book has been translated into 23 languages since 1971. No wonder it has become the world's most widely read book on design. This is not only for designers but for everyone.
|