without thought

Change design

Yesterday I was at the Change Design symposium in my college, Bath Spa. It was a day that served to generate debate regarding ethical and sustainable issues. Speakers included John Thackara, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Rupert Bassett, Karen Blincoe and husband Mervyn Kurlansky. The day also featured discussion groups, enabling students to take part in conversations regarding design education, sustainability and the role of the designer in the community. Particularly in the vein of what I have been exploring in this Blog, John Thackara gave a very concise talk on collaborative innovation, presenting several projects undertaken as part of dott07. Both Thackara and Shiela Levrant helped me to understand more about how my thinking on design has been changing over the last six months. Both speakers drew attention to the importance of shutting up and listening more; especially in relation to their involvement with community work.

The conclusions of the symposium and the discussion groups were varied but my own general feelings and what I feel took away from it was that in the future Designers will need to take on more social responsibility, adopt better leadership skills (not blaming unethical decision making on clients), and become more open to cross collaboration with a variety of different disciplines that (in the words of Karen Blincoe) could mean agencies employing a social anthropologists and chemists as part of its design team.

One thing did capture my attention though and that was the Imperio Armani label on the back of Mervyn Kurlansky’s jeans. But as he said later, none of us are perfect; or as American humourist Don Marquis put it

“A hypocrite is a person who–but who isn’t?”

More information can be found on the event at changedesign.info