Thoughts on "Innovation"
love it or hate it... design is mainstream and global. and guess what? I hate it. Mainstream design has moved toward the ideologies of advertising and marketing, but with a self-righteous twist. Enhancing the user experience? Making peoples lives better, easier, happier? Complete bullshit. An "innovative" piece of plastic popping out of a mold halfway around the globe can only do so much. I'm not saying these products don't fill needs or satisfy consumers. Many really do help people (medical especially, but these are almost never mass produced). But thats not kind of design bottom line whores like BusinessWeek or Forbes are talking about. Advertiziser's have been selling the American dream since the country was founded, but it wasn't until the post WWII 50's when the public really started buying into it. Touting that they really could SELL you a better life. Design and manufacturing exploded. Since, this model has been exploited, destroyed, rebuilt over and over. Thus creating highly proficient, time tested selling machines out of corporations who have now globalized the American dream while concurrently defiling the America from which it came. It's raised a culture of excess who does not produce (enter outsourcing) but only uses and discards. This "Innovation" hoopla of the past 5 years is a mere step in that same path. Taking the designers, the dreamers, out of the shop and into the board room, further distancing idea from object. Thru computer modeling and rapid prototyping out of materials irrelevant to the final product, they've created the illusion of hands on design and problem solving. These "design" companies are moving more and more toward concepts like user experience, branding and strategy, all extensions of the marketing department, the original "idea" people.
Conceptual ideas should be left to philosophers, writers, and artists, who's real products are thoughts and electronic signals that can be reproduced ad infinitum with little or no physical manifestation. I support the free flow of ideas, not objects. Localized manufacturing coupled with a forced product take-back system solves this. It benefits the both the community and the product it produces by creating jobs and forcing a company to consider all phases of manufacturing. Eventually leading to a "cradle to cradle" mentality where raw materials are obtained sustainably, toxins are eliminated, productivity increased, and users satisfied not only to have a great product, but one they can be proud of for generations to come. Not only should you support your local companies, you should design for them.
End of Rant.
-Conte on Thursday, June 22, 2006 2:17 pm
FOTD_fact of the day(probably only gonna last a week 'cause im lazy)
No Anvils on the Roof
this sweet parrot was chilling outside my office... thats it... just thought it was cool ... doesn't relate to green design or anything like that, i just liked it. 
The bus driver says: "That's the ugliest baby that I've ever seen. Ugh!"
it's the new quarterly magazine inside BusinessWeek magazine... let me know what you think.. I personally think it's a bit stale... maybe because we live this stuff day-to-day... and i think that the word 'innovation' is used so loosely lately... EVERYONE thinks that they are innovative... none-the-less Ziba is mentioned for it's innovation camp.. which is suppose to be fantastic... so Rob if you need something quick to read.. here ya go... 
I'm looking for something like this pic.
Most recent by Stu on Monday, July 24, 2006 8:28 pm
You should change it to FART