Contemporary Design: A Critical Discussion

Thomas Goodbun N0366670 2013-PROD20304 Design Studies 2: Critical Essay 1 2nd January 2013

“Do you agree or disagree with the author’s view of contemporary design?”

One of the most intensely debated topics in today’s design world is that of how to define itself, what are its boundaries and where do they end? Such a broad question comes with as equally broad opinions and views from designers, authors, experts and anyone who has been interacted with the many facets of current design. The key text for this essay will be Guy Julier’s publication, “The Culture of Design”, 2nd Edition 2007, where his personal account and opinions on what contemporary design is and from what roots it developed will be lifted, analysed and evaluated against the views of others, including that of Penny Sparke’s from her book “An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present” 2nd Edition 2004. Alongside this, texts such as “Design of the 20th Century” by Charlotte & Peter Fiell and other articles, reports and sources will be used to generate conflicts and agreements of thought that can be used in conjunction with my own reasoning to establish a valid conclusion on to what extent I myself agree or disagree with such views and why.

This essay will also primarily draw focus to the late 20th Century developments in design and the transfer into the 21st and more recent years, including the structural changes that occurred in the industry within this time and the opinions of the impacts this had on current design. This acts as a framework to operate within as some of the key texts have been published at different times resulting in dissimilar meanings for what

“contemporary design” would have meant to the authors. Within the first half of the essay, Julier and those who support his views will be discussed before being compared to those who offer an alternate counterpoint in the second half, followed by a personal evaluation to conclude and address the title objective.

Across all the research and reading involved in the preparation of this essay, one very clear recurring summation was that, in the last 30 years, the design process, culture and industry as a whole has gone through a massive reconstruction, a revolution in itself of sorts. “Design inevitably perpetuates the ideology of the system it serves.” (Sparke 2004:pg.205) A view that suggests that today’s systems, such as those of societal change, media and culture laws and industry governance is directly linked to the nature of present design. Guy Julier (2007) supports this idea fundamentally and expands upon it with his case study on post-1980 developments in the design industry, where he details the progression of the consultancy boom, through the “Neo/Post-Fordist” production, and the 1990 economic recession. “…During the 1980s many larger design consultancies were driven by the imperative for high profits… this clearly matches a general ideological condition of that decade” (Julier, 2007:pg.26). He goes into depth about the idea of “The New Economy”, the digital age of e-commerce and established corporate identities in design, particularly “how traditional measures of value were no longer valid because technology was changing the world so quickly and dramatically” (Julier: Chris Farrell, 2009). From this he draws the conclusions that this caused the changes to the industry (coupled with its fragmentation due to the 1990 recession (Julier, 2007:pg.37)) that introduced the current diversity in design practice, that of the expansions into other creative sectors such as marketing, services, advertising and branding.

“Increasingly throughout the 20th Century, the interests of businesses to create competitive products have driven the evolution and diversity of design as well as the careers of individual designers.” (Charlotte & Peter Fiell, 2012:pg.7)

This statement, pulled from the comprehensive publication “Design of the 20 th Century”, agrees firmly with Julier’s reasoning, offering further valid evidence to support his view on what contemporary design is and where it has come from.

Philip B. Meggs (2010) discusses in his book, “Megg’s History of Graphic Design”, similar matters of the change in design, specifically that of graphic and other visual medias, in this time. He writes about how the skills of designers were not only starting to become applied to other sectors like advertising and brand/packaging design, but political ones too, areas where design would become heavily tied to propaganda for corporate identities. On top of this he goes on to say about how ‘…marketing experts soon discovered the persuasive technique of showing products being enjoyed by beautiful people in beautiful settings. Pretty women soon smiled out of billboards selling everything imaginable.’ (Meggs, 2010:pg. 2) This opinion ties hand in hand with Julier’s on how design has been assimilated into the wider culture of society for the financial benefits of the consultancies and the businesses that were aligned with them.

These authors support each other in building the picture that currently the world is where design is “no longer a ‘value-added’ extra” (Julier, 2007) to the smaller circuit of manufacture, but is now, aided by market capitalism and economic powerhouses, a global phenomenon, where everyone is a consumer. Julier says himself that where design was once restricted to a “range of domestic objects” it now involves larger sectors like “planning and shaping (of) digital interfaces in computer games and websites, to large-scale leisure and retail spaces, and even the creation of a country’s public image” (2007). It is argued that one of the largest sectors that has influenced design practice and impacted on our post-modernistic world is that of technology, and the “online” design world.

“…The computer was becoming more readily accessible to all and could be increasingly found in homes as well as offices. The rapid development of the internet in the 1990’s completely transformed the way people worked and communicated, and software increasingly dictated the work produced by designers.” (Lance Grew 2011: Meggs, 2010:pg.424)

This subsidiary opinion expands on Julier’s idea of contemporary design being the combination of a diverse range of disciplines, fuelled and focused through business endeavours and alliances. It offers the specific view that 21st Century design has been increasingly concentrated within an online framework, something that has been statistically proven by national performance indicators like IMRG. “The sector has grown by 6,600% in the last eleven years – from a mere £0.8bn back in 2000 to an estimated £69bn by the end of this year.” (Martina Cuellar, 2010:IMRG, 2010) This statement is taken from an article about the rise of e-commerce which shows how much financial incentive there is behind the online retail market, a market that is intrinsically linked and heavily dependent on the current design industry, again stated by Julier and others.

Out of this increasingly online modern world, some argue an alternative case for what contemporary design is. “What’s next is people. As we get more technically driven, the importance of people becomes more than it ever has been before.” (David Carson, 2003, est. 19mins 55s) Taken from the concluding segment of his TED talk on “Design + Discovery”, Carson was trying to suggest and stress that current design is actually born from the individuality and uniqueness of the people themselves over the desires of the corporate band. On current designers and their careers he believed that “…you have to utilize who you are in your work, nobody else can do that… that’s the way you can produce some unique work” (2003). Through this he makes clear that the capitalist interest does not limit or dictate the flow of contemporary design, instead that it is down to the designers themselves to produce within a framework provided by the business infrastructure.

Complimenting this opinion, a paper on design culture written by Professor and Director Xian Yi Yang, of the Technology Institute of Art & Design, Wuhan University, China, titled “Trends for Contemporary Design in the 21st Century” discusses alike concepts to Carson’s in more detail. “The most prominent merit of contemporary design lies in its open structure, it is free.” (Yang, 2012) Is one of his three key trends summarised in his abstract, and bases upon the belief that currently design is unlimited from changing; it is not constrained by capitalist agendas but, like proposed by Julier, is culturally diverse. However unlike previous thoughts on how business alliances forged the design diversification of the late 20th/early 21st century, Yang believes that “contemporary design is tied to the background of the era” (2012), much like Sparke’s statement aforementioned (2004:pg.205). The difference here being that Sparke believed the imperative of the time was to achieve high profits, whereas Yang supposes that contemporary design breathes from a more cultural, spiritual and personal level.

“In addition to technological standards and functional needs, contemporary design conveys the philosophical thoughts and ideology of the people and those who practice it. It manifests the progress of human civilization in a material way.” (Yang, 2012:pg.2)

He states that as a backbone “the culture is diversified in nature”, and there is both a material and non-material nature to the industry. This conveys his respect for the concept that current design lies within a synergy between the cultural background and input of the people, and the system itself. He epitomises this ideal in his description of functionality, saying “The definition of function is not only in material but also in culture and spirit. The design will not only have useful value, but also convey a particular cultural connotation which makes the design be some metaphysics or symbol of a feature in a cultural system.” (Yang, 2012:pg.4)

It becomes a matter which is as integral to the design profession itself as it is to this essay, to understand that in the time it takes to define what design is, current or through its development, that due to its open-structure nature it will have evolved by assimilating more information, ideas and culture already. Especially under current highspeed circumstances that today’s modern world operates within owing to online technology and the pressure of the business echelon. However when looking at the opinions formulated about contemporary design that have been examined here, a firm conclusion can be speculated.

Julier aptly summarises and describes most of the elements of contemporary design; he has supportive evidence and comprehensive research into the background of its development and other high profile authors share alike beliefs that tie hand in hand with his. However it feels like he has taken a very logical approach to defining it. He is heavily dependent on statistical values and business/manufacturer trends of the recent decades opposed to looking at the industry as a whole, especially influences from more recent years. While this provides a great grounding and insight to where the industry has developed from it neglects being more open to the stimuli that have impacted current design in a much more cultural manner. This is where the views of Carson and Yang provide what is lacking in Julier’s opinion, the personal element to contemporary design, its uniqueness in being something more than a tool for capitalist endeavours and interest, and that it is in fact something that is grown from the visions of designers themselves in response to societal and cultural change. They provide the rounding to the core description Julier and Sparke deliver over the diversity into other creative sectors in design today fuelled by the corporate band and current ideologies. This results in a fairer, all-embracing opinion which highlights the blurring of contemporary design’s boundaries in present times and better reflects what it represents as the face of the industry.

References: Penny Sparke. (2004). Conclusion Design and Culture in the Twentieth Century. In: An Introduction To Design and Culture in the Twentieth Century. 2nd Edition. New York: Harper & Row. 205. Guy Julier. (2007). Introducing Design Culture. In: The Culture of Design. 2nd ed. London: SAGE. 1-3. Guy Julier. (2007). Design Production. In: The Culture of Design. 2nd ed. London: SAGE. 25-37. Chris Farrell. (2009). The New Economy in Historic Perspective. Available: http://www.nber.org/digest/dec00/w7833.html. Last Accessed 2nd January 2013. Charlotte & Peter Fiell. (2012). Introduction. In: Susanne Husemann Design of the 20th Century. 2nd ed. Cologne: Taschen. 6-8. Philip B. Meggs (2010). Megg's History of Graphic Design. 5th ed. New Jersey/Canada: John Wiley & Sons Inc. 420-425. Lance Grew. (2011). What is Contemporary Design?. Available: http://huckleberryuk.com/2011/10/04/what-is-contemporary-design/. Last accessed 5th Jan 2013. Martina Cuellar. (2010). The Rise and Rise of E-commerce. Available: http://www.rapidparcel.com/blog/news/the-rise-and-rise-of-e-commerce/. Last accessed 5th Jan 2013. David Carson. (2003). David Carson on Design + Discovery. Available: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_carson_on_design.html. Last accessed 7th Jan 2013. Yang, XYY, 2012. Trends for Contemporary Design in the 21st Century. 5. China: Wuhan University.