Design for Life - Episode 2

Philippe Starck is known as a designer to mould his creativeness to the time. He tries to adapt the idea of demographic designs to suit the economic situation of our time, as he wants not an object of fashion and trend, but an affordable, sustainable and functional product to benefit all consumers. If an object is expensive the consumer isn’t going to buy it, and therefore the design will not be successful. However this is impacted by the economic down fall and inflation, which in turn will affects sales.

The students involved in this design experience are getting to know the city of Paris and with its art and their experiences from this one place can influence their views and creativeness in design. Also reflecting good and bad design in a subjective view, which is highly critical to designers. It is a way for them to look at their designs to see why some people like it and others think otherwise. Philippe Starck says “Designers need to embraces the future, by putting sustainability at the heart of their work.” The idea of design is based around the way you communicate an object to suit the need of a wide range of people. This insight is understandable as having objects that are designed truly for sustainability is relevant in our era, due to issues of less space, use of large amounts of materials and the environmental impact.

Through the diminishing resources in the world Starck is teaching the students about the potential of the world and therefore they have to look at design in terms of it being beneficial to humanity. From this I understand the idea of beneficial design with the use of creativity will assist in new and innovative design, which will be required in the world without the repetitive process that is happening of redesigning more of the same object with the same use.

Looking at real life problems of hunger, poverty, disabilities, ethics, in underdeveloped countries come to mind when Starck placed the brief onto the students of designing for the benefit of humans. By researching and understanding in-depth the target people, such as their lifestyles, likes, dislikes etc, and from this looking at a smaller target market in-depth, and looking at their problems, will be less challenging in the sense that you will not be approaching the brief as if you are trying to cure cancer. Having a specific target market will help in reason and creating a product. However in the end of the project two contestants left in reasons of lack of effort and innovation.