Critical Design

Heeseok Jung

Critical Design, or design that asks carefully crafted questions and makes us think, is just as difficult and just as important as design that solves prob-lems or finds answers. Being provocative and challenging might seem like an obviouse role for art, but art is far too removed from the world of mass consumption and eletronic customer products to be effective in this context, even though it is of course part of consumerist culture. There is a place for a form of design that pushes the cultural and aesthetic potential and role of electronic products and services to its limits. Questions must be asked about what we actually need, about the way poetic moments can be intertwined with the everyday and not seperated from it. At the moment, this type of design is neglected and regarded as secondary. Today, design’s main purpose is still to provide new roduucts - smaller, faster, different, better.

Critical design is related to haute couture, concept cars, design propaganda, and visions of the future, but its purpose is not to present the dreams of in-dustry, attract new business, anticipate new trendsor test the market. Its pur-pose is to stimulate discussion and debate amongst designers, industry and the public about the aethetic quality of our electronically mediated existence. It differs too from experimental design, which seeks to extend the medium, extending it in the name of progress and economic values, in an effort to push the limits of lived experience not the medium, This has always been the case in architecture, but design is struggling to reach this level of intellectual maturity.

- Dunne & Raby : Critical Design

Beware of SoftwareMeike Gerritzen, 2010.

The “Beware of Software” vest is an example of critical design because the design in itself reflects on contemporary matters, such as our adaption to our digital culture. The orange vest, usually worn to bring attention or caution to others, is covered in text that refers to our use of software. The text exclaims, “Software has become culture”, making the design popular in which the topic of software is extremely popular in the marketplace and mainstream media. The design itself addresses how successful and how consuming software is to our culture, which allows me to believe it provides complicated pleasure to the viewer, or consumer. The vest provides a contemplative experience for the viewer in which they reflect on the idea that software has not only impacted their lives, but their culture and lifestyle as a whole. The vest brings attention to the placement software has within our society. The designer takes the software out of its original form and places their design on clothing to help the viewer further engage with their thoughts.

- Maria

The design of the birdhouses, which are miniature complex forms of architecture con-structed and designed by both Jeff Canham and Luke Bartels are an example of critical design. The design of these birdhouses are critical because it evokes thought within the viewer by allowing them to imagine a contemporary life for animals, even as small as birds. Since the design can be engaged with by the viewer on a conceptual level, it is possible to believe that the design is unpopular. However, the design also offers an appeal that could be supported by the marketplace which would make the design popular, as well. The design proves to be much more complex than ordinary birdhouses through its small de-tailed features such as custom signage on top, or around the birdhouses which required a vast amount of imagination. For this exact reason, the design provides an experience for the viewer, which can be seen as complicated pleasure. The design is playful and engag-es with the viewer influencing their overall interaction with the design while leaving the viewer with room to playfully imagine how the design could be used sufficiently.

- Maria

For the birdsJeff canham and Luke bartels, 2010-2011.

Best Made CompanyPeter Buchanan-Smith 2009.

I have been following Best Made Co. for quite sometime now and was really glad to see the company referenced in the prescribed text for this class. I chose this as one of my examples of critical design because Peter Buchanan-Smith re-invented an object in a design conscious manner and as Graphic Design: Now in Production states he took a “curious gamble” by creating something that didn’t quite exist and that nobody even knew they wanted. Best Made emphasizes high-quality, conscious design in conjunction with functionality and have garnered a staunch, cult following in just a few short years. In spite the lack of mainstream success, Best Made has expanded beyond the axe into a full-scale lifestyle brand serving the previously unknown needs of their consumers. In my opinion, the brand provides complicated pleasure by having us consider the way in which an everyday tool and art can converge. It allows one to think of the product in a different way and for the people who purchase these bespoke axes, it allows them to redefine what the axe means to them.

- Thando

Tree of Codes is a book that challenges the reader to peruse stories carefully, and to view a book as more than just a container of words. Books themselves - the physical aspects - are never truly considered by the mind, their identities never es-tablished, but rather merged with the story it carries. Tree of Codes transforms the book into something independent from the story within, allowing the book to exist separately from and in unison with its story. In some sense, this design is critical of people’s (readers and the authors themselves) mindless interactions with books, of their absorption with the story, but their thoughtlessness towards the physical ap-pearance. This is definitely unpopular design - most publishing houses would view this project as a bad investment. It would be costly to print, and it also doesn’t fully function as a book in the sense that it is difficult to read. It carries a story, but the story is not just about the words typed inside, but about the book itself. This design does provide complicated pleasure - it is strange enough that it provokes thought about design and functionality, but not so strange that it can just be considered a work of conceptual print experimentation.

- Natasha

Tree of CodesSara de bondt /Jonathan Safran Foer, 2010.

Food for thought platesCharles S. Anderson, 2006.

These melamine plates forces viewers to connect the meat on their plate with the actual, once living animal it came from. Obviously, these designs are critical of not just the non-vegetarian lifestyle, but of people’s tendency to ignore the greater reality behind eating meat, and their easy acceptance of certain kinds (such as a pig or cow) but their intolerance towards oth-ers (such as a dog). It can only be predictably expected that this design (or any design overtly promoting animal rights) will be unpopular and will seem more conceptual than not, simply because the consumer market for such a product is greatly reduced to the people who are already aware of the issues it hopes to bring to light. As such, it may be dismissed as too provocative and too unappealing to the greater portion of consumers. This design does provide complicated pleasure - its design is simple and usable, but its message is far from conservative. It challenges the audience and also opens doors for debate about social/industry norms.

- Natasha

I chose Eric Ku’s ‘Chair/Chair’ project as an example of critical design as it is thought provoking piece that reimagines typography in a very unique way. The letters used to spell chair can be assembled into the object, making the typography functional, allowing the piece to achieve the “intellectual maturity” that Dunne & Raby argue is missing in design. I would most certainly describe this piece as unpopular design as main-stream success is unlikely for such an unusual piece. Although the chair has practical value I do not believe it’s main purpose is utility, which makes mass consumption somewhat implausible. I would say that the chair provides a sense of complicated pleasure in that it challenges pre-conceptions of both letterforms and chairs, and forces the viewer to observe both of these things in a manner they are not quite used to.

- Thando

ChairEric Ku, 2009.

Legal PaperweightM&Co Lab., 1984.

I think this product is very clever design and it also very critical. The design-er is very common object to create an useful tool. When people do paper work, we see that people through away there paper after hand crumpled. And they make messy their office. This object is helping to organize paper, but the shape of the object is can be trash. So if people hand crumpled pa-pers, it would be remind to organize their table or they would not hand crumpled papers. I think this product could be ‘popular’ object. Because the hand-crumpled paper of shape is interesting and reminding people organi-zation as actual the object of function. However, this object doesn’t apply to ‘complicated pleasure’.

- Heeseok

Field Notes is a line of handy memo books which are designed by Aaron Draplin and Coudal Partners. I think that Field Notes are renovation for note books. The designer created colors and each theme. Also, the design has some of nostalgia factor from local symbols in America The products are popular design. From the text book, ‘Offering an all-American alterna-tive to the popular Moleskine line, the Field Notes brand speaks more to the inner lumberjack than to the hipster artiste’ So, following this text book, this notebooks are a big competitor with Moleskine which is on of the best notebook company. Depends on concept of the notebook, people does not only write on the note book, they enjoy with the product appears.

-Heeseok

Field NoteAaron Draplin and Coudal Partners, 2011.

Irama BoomSheila Hicks: Weaving as Metaphor, 2008.

A lot of books have the sole purpose of providing information to a reader. This example of critical design, begs the question, is the way you design a book important to its content, and how? After hearing Boom speak at a recent lecture I began looking at other book designs and contrasted with their content. There are those who can be completely satisfied with a straightforward design, that almost tells the story before opening the first page. Here we have something completely different. the physical book, tells a story in itself. The content and the creation become two separate stories. Many mainstream readers might see this as unnecessary or distracting to what a book is intended to do. For some this is what design should be, others may just not understand.

- Rachel

Joe Scanlan’s works for DIY are examples of critical design because they use cultural materials, affirmative product design, mass production and probably the confusion of anyone who’s ever tried to put together furniture from Ikea as the mediums. The work as a whole questions the products that so many of us buy and what they allow us to do. When in boxes most Ikea products look exactly the same because they are essentially trimmed down pieces of fake wood that come in a range of sizes so why shouldn’t consumers design their own prod-ucts instead of following along with the not-so-clearly described destiny in the instruction manual? Technically, the materials used for this work are very popu-lar and definitely a part of the mainstream design world but the newly invented function for these materials is not. It is popular to design your own home and put together your own furniture for the cheap but the idea of designing your own coffin out of readymade products that are so accessible is not. This individ-ualized and yet very-Ikea coffin is a complicated pleasure because the idea of building your own coffin for a couple hundred dollars seems so brilliant and sick.

- Nathalie

DIYJoe Scanlan, 2003.

Riders Magazine / Jorge LorenzoAlbert Seveso, 2009.

Graphic designer, Alberto Seveso’s art of works are dramatic and impressive to graphic lovers. His works are about decorating human body with specific shapes of mechanical parts and transforming machines. It is critical design to express modern society which overwhelm people with countless scientifically developed machines and robots. Human bodies in his works are severely vivid and colorful but the facial expressions of the humans are so depressed and dark. It definitely represents criti-cal view for the mechanized our future life. His works are popular because they look fantastic, charming and simultaneously meaningful. People are attracted by beautiful colors, details and graphic components. It seamed to be complicated pressure for audieince to think directly critical issue from the beautifully decorated painting. In this sense, it is not simply expressed graphic design but more showed hidden meaning behind the splendor painting.

- Hyosun

The example of critical design is Dillon Boy’s graphic design, which emerged from a street graffiti background blending with pop art, merchandising and advertising. The artist takes the most popular childhood idols of Disney’s princesses and makes them naked. It combines the ideas of perfection and innocence by expressing Beauty and Decay at the same time. It is also combinations between high and lowbrow society through the art. His work is looked commercial and pop art but has deeper mean-ings and makes us keep questioning. It is definitely popular because of the famous and historical content of Disney. This is a part of the main stream of graphic art as a pop art. Also, I can say his work is complicated pressure because it makes audiences’ various interpretations.

- Hyosun

The Fairest BeautyDillon Boy, 2013.

“Homemade is best” for IKEAForsman & Bodenfors, 2010

This collaboration between Forsman & Bodenfors and IKEA aims to dis-play the “ingredients” of various projects in a tasteful way. This is an example of critical design because the team is aiming to send a message that there is more to the superiority of DIY than just the satisfaction of making it yourself. They are trying to communicate the message that knowing the ins and outs of a creation (even if it is just an assembled furniture kit) is ultimately a better experience in the long run because it allows the user to gain control of their environment. The simplicity of the graphics also communicates IKEA’s standard of minimizing complexity and waste without sacrificing tastefulness of visual appeal.

Developing a critical perspective in design is made difficult by the fact that the design profession, and product designers in particular, see the so-cial value od their work as inextricably linked to the market place. Design outside this aerena is viewed with suspicion as escapist or unreal. At the moment, the only alternatives to the Hollywood genre of corporate de-sign are design consultancies promoting themselves to corporate clients with slick mocked-up products that are never intended to be developed any further. These objects are purely about PR, they are designed to sell the consultancy’s potential for innovative adn creative design thinking.

To be considered successful in the marketplace, design has to sell in large num-bers, therefore it has to be popular. Critical design can never be truely popular, and that is its fundamental problem. Object that are critical of industry’s agenda are un-likely to be funded by industry. As a result they will tend to remain one-offs. Maybe we need a new catagory to replace the avant-garde: (un)popular design.

- Dunne & Raby : Critical Design

Albert ExergianIconic TV series, 2009-2010.

Albert Exergian designed a series of posters, also known as the Iconic TV se-ries. His simplistic poster designs of classic American television series prove to be a critical design through the memories they evoke within the viewer, evoking conversation through the viewers relationships to the poster. This type of de-sign could be seen as unpopular because it serves as a conceptual design to the viewer, evoking critical emotions while the viewer engages with the work. How-ever, in relation to how the design correlates with the mainstream world, the viewer is engaging with conceptual work that was made in reference to main-stream media, therefore the design could also be seen as popular. This design series can be seen as complicated pleasure because the viewer is left to engage with the work through their imagination due to the simplistic use of shapes that are used to represent each iconic t.v series. The design most importantly brings on complicated pleasure because the efficiency of the design relies on the viewers imagination and their relationship to each t.v series and poster.

- Maria

This product by m&co could appear to be critical of many different social norms centering around time, from our wastage of it to our extreme dependency on the numerical time system. I could imagine this clock hanging perhaps on the wall of an office floor, where the only number significant to the workers is the 5 (signaling the end of a work day) - the absence of the other numbers evokes the feeling that the rest of our time is not thought of and not valued enough, but rather exists as an empty stretch that passes by meaninglessly, our attention focused only on the point that will signal a change in our pattern. It carries a kind of harshness, a mocking, but angry demand that we pay attention to our usage of time, and question the way in which we pass it. This clock could be considered “unpopular” simply because it is not utilitarian. It is a clock, but it doesn’t function effectively as a clock is “supposed” to function - to tell us the precise numerical value of current time. It is ambiguous, and probably would be difficult to sell successfully in the mainstream market, but it does offer complicated pleasure. The design is odd, but not so strange that it would be dismissed as a whacky creation. It is simply unusual enough to seriously provoke thought and consideration from whoever views it. Its simplicity in design allows for this type of intellectual questioning, instead of consumerist dismissal.

- Natasha

5 o’clockM & Co.

Elle UKMarissa Bourke, June 2010.

This magazine cover sets itself apart far from most other mainstream publica-tions. Elle is one of the most commercialized magazines there is, and to have a cover like this is highly unusual. Typically we see crisp photographs of young ce-lebrities, airbrushed, looking straight into the camera. Here a soft, fuzzy picture allows us to exam the reasons behind this choose. The bleak amount of text plays into its subtle nature and quite effortlessly allows itself to stand apart from everything else that would have been on the shelf. Many would even find this to be a breath of fresh air amidst all the other predictable newsstand covers.

- Rachel

The each four ties show tow countries flags, one tie dyed and one is black back-ground with white shirts’ buttons. It’s probably meaningful that something represent people. Because if people wear ties, the ties are located people of chest. However, we are difficult to catch meaning of the ties’ titles. What the designer try to show? The two flag is represent their country, but I believe that they have behind mean-ings. And see-through is might be about my self. And tie dye might be hippie culture? or freedom? I think that this design is unpopular. Because, I think that the print and object is very common, but as a tie might be too much and costume.Complicated pleasure can be, or not. I think this is depends on the work real meaning can tell.

- Heeseok

4 Proposal for ties (Taiwan Tie/Tiedye Tie/Thailand Tie/See-Through Tie)Daneil Eatock, 2007

Hester Issue (Re-Magazine)Jop van Bennekom, 2004.

I chose this work because I think that it is a very interesting example of criti-cal design in that it uses irony to comment on very personal and often times overlooked themes without making a joke about them. This piece is critical of the way that issues of mental illness and self consciousness/awareness is usually lessened in affirmative design. Mental illness is usually dramatized while issues of self worth are very commonly dumbed down in women’s magazines. The overall feeling of these pages is that something is that depression is real and much more complex than many are led to believe through media. This magazine in relatively ‘un(popular)’ because it is not in the mainstream design world. Most people are not exposed to this magazine on a regular basis or even know about it. To the people who do get a chance to see this work it provides ‘complicated pleasure’ because we are not accustomed to seeing issues of depression or self confi-dence shown in this way. Therefore, when encountering this, people are drawn to read and understand in order to solve the question: Is it genuine or just a farce?

- Nathalie

The Pop Ink Soap Collection is an example of critical design because it is not the typical design seen on packaging for soap. It is aesthetically pleasing, nostalgic, inter-esting and weird. The illustrations are simultaneously funny and discomforting. By exaggerating claims and ads made by other brands, does this packaging clearly re-flect the fears and desires that we actually have for a soap product? I do not think that this soap would be unpopular but I do not believe that it is something that mainstream consumers wouldn’t necessarily understand or see the point in. I also think that this product is a great example of complicated pleasure because it grabs the viewer’s attention through humor and keeps it by making the viewer ask himself questions about the purpose and meaning of the design.

- Nathalie

Pop Ink Soap CollectionCharles S. Anderson Co., 2006.

Abstract CityChristoph Neimann, 2008-2012.

On of the critical designs is Christoph Niemann’s Abstract City. He is an iluustra-tor, graphic designer and author. He desires to reshape simple and everyday ob-servations and his life stories which is related to every audience. He brilliantly illus-trated a series of works, which are reflection of modern life and society and keep questioning to viewers what the complicated life mean to us. His work is a com-bination of essay and graphic design as a book, which is very unique. Even though his work is not really easy to directly understand what he want to say, it appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, American Illustration and has won award from AIGA and etc. His work is unique and fresh because it is his own sto-ry and life, which represents very small product and things from daily lives we can just pass by. It makes the viewer think the small things one more time through his detail observation. that is why his work is somewhat complicated pressure.

- Hyosun

The End