But is it fair to say that I'm conflating Starck with design? Maybe Starck is though... I don't see very much reason for visible forms of design to continue at present. If design continues, my sense is that it has to become much more concerned with Hertzian space (see my forthcoming screed in A+U).
Does there have to be a collective form? Remember the anti-design movement of the 1970s, also running concurrent with an "unexpected" recession after a long boom? And even if I suggested that there's all that Maker stuff out there, it's not really design in the sense that most readers of this blog would accept. Frankly, and maybe it's just me getting old (but I'm asking some of you and not getting much back!), but I don't see "design culture" in the DIY world today. People making blogs (even uber hip blogs) generally hit the submit button on bldgblog or use movable type or whatever. There's a general absence of the bottom-up today in terms of stuff that designers can mine. Skateboards, T-shirts, album covers, weird fashions? All those things seem to have evaporated. The Cool Hunt died long ago.
And maybe this is the problem with design today… as the giant firehose that was the mainstream, that sublime object of desire for design, has splintered and fragmented into many diverse forces, it's just no longer cool to be edgy, it's no longer possible for design to cut new territory. See here, for example.
This isn't to (necessarily) say that our collective professions evaporate, only to say that design had better stop seeming so precious and twee, and fast.
But is it fair to say
But is it fair to say that I'm conflating Starck with design? Maybe Starck is though... I don't see very much reason for visible forms of design to continue at present. If design continues, my sense is that it has to become much more concerned with Hertzian space (see my forthcoming screed in A+U).
Does there have to be a collective form? Remember the anti-design movement of the 1970s, also running concurrent with an "unexpected" recession after a long boom? And even if I suggested that there's all that Maker stuff out there, it's not really design in the sense that most readers of this blog would accept. Frankly, and maybe it's just me getting old (but I'm asking some of you and not getting much back!), but I don't see "design culture" in the DIY world today. People making blogs (even uber hip blogs) generally hit the submit button on bldgblog or use movable type or whatever. There's a general absence of the bottom-up today in terms of stuff that designers can mine. Skateboards, T-shirts, album covers, weird fashions? All those things seem to have evaporated. The Cool Hunt died long ago.
And maybe this is the problem with design today… as the giant firehose that was the mainstream, that sublime object of desire for design, has splintered and fragmented into many diverse forces, it's just no longer cool to be edgy, it's no longer possible for design to cut new territory. See here, for example.
This isn't to (necessarily) say that our collective professions evaporate, only to say that design had better stop seeming so precious and twee, and fast.