Design For Life - Episode 3

Philippe Starck believes the drive of laziness doesn’t result in good design. They have to change their attitude in order to succeed. I believe this as hard working in research, and communication will drive us as designers to develop something worthwhile and sustainable, without the potential threats of failures or faults in designs.

So with this statement the students have to put it to the test in their final project in which they have to create a product that is ethical, ecological, democratic and for daily use (non electrical), adding their creative, honest and moral insight in their design. As Philippe Starck states “INVENTION is the goal” as it something that will be useful, compared to if it is a redesign. From this proposal it can be seen that the most successful designs in the market is something that is invented differently which will intrigue the user to want and buy, such as that of the Apple company.

The key to the project is sustainability as in designing a product there needs to be the reasons of use and solving problems, and most importantly the idea of necessity. Philippe Starck repeats to his students as designers to think in terms of creativeness in which products and ideas will emerge. He doesn’t want them to pick a product and redesign as he believes that isn’t the communication of design and creativeness.

However most importantly encouragement, confidence and self believe is another aspect of good designs. Having these characteristics will influence as designers to believe in themselves and their creative minds, as Nick Powell quotes by Tom Edison “Invention is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration”. Being convinced you possess these qualities as a designer will strive you to create good designs for people with enthusiasm and effort.

This is what he wants his students to be and taking risks with certainty and encouragements will influence them to have a wow factor and intrigue their audience in their designs. So we as designers have to embrace ourselves in the people we are designing for and understand what their life involves by putting ourselves in their shoes as a way to experience firsthand their needs, and wants in order to capture what the design needs to have and understand what the target market doesn’t know what they want yet.

Nevertheless Philippe Starck briefs the students by saying that when designing a product, it isn’t just the appearance and it works like this , but the designer has to design the entire product from how and what technology will be needed to design the product. From this insight, I recognize that being a designer one needs more than the background of design, but elements of engineering, knowledge and such to help in advancing a design and see if it is possible.