How Design can change the world

How Design can change the world

Design is a vast word as it could mean anything. If you put design into categories you would think of typography, colours, furniture, architecture, interiors, vehicles, products, clothing, patterns, even the living is a form of design.

Design history is an important source for the development of modern design. Hauffe (1998) makes a significant point that looking back to the industrial revolution you would need to look further into the pre-industrial era to fully understand the existences of today’s modern design. The passage by writer Thomas Hauffe from book, Design A Concise History explains to develop design you would need the background knowledge as this improves the designers understanding of how things work in terms of reinventing products.

Today there are many aspects of design that can possibly change our quality of life. Technology has progressively changed the way how we operate as we communicate through using devices such as computers and smartphones. Also such use of these devices speeds up our everyday agendas. Online shopping is a great example as it involves not many shoppers not having to go out and they can do this in front of their computer screens or on the go. The process of applying for a job has changed as many applicants now apply online and occasionally applicants get a job offer. The traditional way of attending interviews still persists, but applying online speeds up the process. Technology has also changed the way how we communicate. Instead of lengthy telephone calls, we now people communicate via email which provides a quicker response.

Trends Now Changing the World: Technology, the Workplace, Management, and Institutions by Cetron, Marvin J.; Davies, Owens from a book called The Futurist, Vol. 35, No. 2 states the features of technology. Cetron et al. (2001) clarifies that the use of computers are rapidly dominating the world and our way of life and the use of manual tools are overlooked in society. Cetron exemplifies that the use of wireless connection on portable devices gives us a much quicker access to the internet on the go. Due to the expansion of design it has changed some of our products.

GSM Classic Mobile Cellular Retro Vintage Brick Phone,(Google Images)

For example the GSM Classic Mobile Cellular Retro Vintage Brick Phone by Motorola used in the 20^th Century had only the features of LCD Colour Display Java applications, a keyboard background LED light for easy use at night, and handfree communication.  

The latest version of the Motorola range called the Moto X 2nd - gen is in a form of a smartphone, (a device that performs many functions as a computer). The design of this model is more ‘sleeker and slimmer’, has a bigger screen which now works as a touchscreen, high quality display, contains a larger internal memory of 16GB or 32 GB being able to download millions of apps and has an outstandingly high quality camera feature of 13 megapixels.  Mobiles phones today are designed in a way that you can do everything on one device as the internal memory is larger and the camera is powerful that people wouldn’t need to invest in a camera anymore.

Moto X, (2ND Generation)

Cetron et al. (2001) explains that the creations of new technologies require a higher level of education and training to be able to use them appropriately along with new opportunities to form businesses and jobs. Designers and students progressing into the design industry have to work much harder as new software’s today require the skills to use them appropriately. Adobe Creative Suite, Vectorworks, AutoCAD and Rhino3D are all the superior CAD software’s that many designers use to produce high quality work and to reach the best standard. Although the traditional methods of hand drawing is used but the CAD platforms makes it easier to alter work and convenient to send to other designers.

The Designers in Residence 2014 programme at the Design Museum, London provides designers across many disciplines the chance to reflect, research and study new ways of developing their practice. They had to work towards a brief based on disruption. The theme enabled each designer newer ways of thinking and unexpected ideas. Christian (2014) comments that he prefers the traditional techniques of drawing such as using pen and ink to have a better understanding of his research material. However Christian uses the digital techniques to help him understand working at a scale correctly and is the dialogue that occurs between the digital and physical techniques. The traditional techniques of materials is vital as it allows the designer to be physical with their work and battles between the use of traditional techniques the digital methods as digitally produced work is higher quality and increases your design skills.

From the early stages of design to today, it has changed drastically and has made numerous improvements in terms of the modernisation of technology; designers are producing better design ideas which create better job opportunities as well as benefiting the economy. Overall the progression forms a conclusion that design can change the world.

References:

Cetron, Marvin J., Davies & Owen, 2001. Trends Now Changing the World: Technology, the Workplace, Management, and Institutions. In: The Futurist. s.l.:The Futurist.

Engadget Score, 2014. Moto X 2nd- gen. [Online]
Available at: http://www.engadget.com/products/motorola/moto/x/2nd-gen/specs/
[Accessed 15th December 2014].

Hauffe, T., 1998. Design: A concise History. s.l.:Laurence King.

Nikingstore, 2014. GSM Classic Mobile Cellular Retro Vintage Brick Phone. [Online]
Available at: http://www.nikingstore.com/shop/gsm-classic-mobile-cellular-retro-vintage-brick-phone-56.html
[Accessed 15th December 2014].