Hello all!
I'm new to this list serve but I've found this particular thread to be very interesting. As a product/interaction designer, educator, and author I know well the challenges that have been so eloquently (and lovingly) described. To quote the great Yogi Berra it does feel a bit like: "Déjà vu all over again". BTW I had to copy and paste that quote to get all of the diacritical marks without resorting to an online search explaining the correct keystroke combinations.....damn technology!). I know some of the respondents are not native English speakers I wanted to be mindful of disregarding their writing traditions (especially given the recent outcome of US elections.....but I digress).
The reason I find this thread so interesting, aside from the obvious job-related issues in the future, is that we've been down this path before. The English reformers in the late 19th century grappled with the issue of preserving the 'legacy' of handcraft as it gave way to the simplification (nullification might be a better word) of industrialization. And if you are to believe John Heskett, the American system of manufacturing was truly made possible not by skilled workers but rather by unskilled laborers who came largely from the rural parts of Europe and were willing to work as a 'cog in a larger machine' for a much lower wage. Reformers at that time grappled with the impact of the 'machine' which I put in quotes because the machine now is not a table saw or drill press but instead a computer running an algorithmic program that can 'detect' a book jacket and eventually (possibly) replicate to a similarly high caliber a wholly new design. Either way we view it we're still talking about a machine designed by a human to speed things up.
The challenge, in my estimation, has always been how to deliver quality while reconciling the time spent (labor). Everyone now wants what only few could afford a century ago and their 'wanting' now drives and sustains national economies. When it became apparently too expensive to produce things 'locally' we outsourced them in order to drive down the labor variable. This is the equivalent of substituting the unskilled worker for the 'outsourced' worker in a foreign country like India or China where 'hands' are cheaper or where programmers charge a fraction of the cost of a US (feel free to substitute any industrialized nation here) worker. And were it not for technology, this outsourcing would probably be impossible or at least not cost-effective. Outsourcing, in other words, was possible only after the infrastructure (the internet) was in place- technology begets change.....or certainly disruption.
The Bauhaus will celebrate it's centennial next summer and certainly, aside from the politics of Nazi Germany, that historic institution grappled with similar dynamics (or tensions). But when it comes time to celebrate this 'revolutionary' institution which of the four Bauhaus histories will we actually embrace: Weimar (gesamtkunstwerk), Dessau (technology the new unity), Berlin (social equity), or Chicago where some would say the Bauhaus continues to evolve (design thinking/strategy as opposed to the design of 'stuff'). Even Frank Lloyd Wright (The Art and Craft of the Machine) weighed in on the issue. I'm quoting (thank you internet) from inkweaver.com because I don't have time to reread the book (nor could I find it if I did have the time):
'.....Wright calls the Renaissance “the setting sun which we mistake for dawn.” The Renaissance promoted the beautification of the exterior. Buildings were built for facades, cornings, and other external features. The possibility of beauty in the layout and functionality of the house was no longer important. In one statement Wright summarizes the greatest power and danger of the Machine:
“The Machine is Intellect mastering the drudgery of earth that the plastic art may live; that the margin of leisure and strength by which man’s life upon the earth can be made beautiful, may immeasurably widen; its function ultimately to emancipate human expression.'
I'm a firm believer in hybridized skills. I won't live long enough to become a cyborg nor do I desire such an evolution but certainly some here on earth do and there's no telling how the very youngest of our children will view (let alone incorporate) technology. My point is that creativity (as many of you have already pointed out) is what's really at stake. Designers are empathic individuals able to 'read' complex situations and plumb the depths of our own ingenuity to come up with appropriate solutions to address the genuine human needs of the day in innovative ways. We will continue to do that but I feel quite certain that by the time machines can design book covers, we may not actually have need for book covers (my apologies to the book designers).
As Don has pointed out in The Invisible Computer(?) it takes a long time for technology to actually make its way into everyday usage. While that cycle is certainly accelerating, the span of a typical human lifetime might still protect us from the real shock of technological change. Industrial designers are constantly pushed to explore and develop ever new possibilities based, in large part, on new emerging technologies. Driverless cars could never operate without the massive amount of 'gathered intelligence' that has been rolled into their operating systems and distributed across the enormously complex (and smart) infrastructure of the cloud. My point is simple- any object (and I'm describing so-called smart objects) must have algorithmic intelligence programmed into them (Don can address this issue far better than I) if they are to work the way we want them to.
Our 'machines' will in fact become much closer to us than ever before because we will increasingly rely on them to 'offload' much of the stuff we don't wish to store in our brains. And in the process free up space for other things. I for one am happy to have gotten rid of my address book, my calendar, my watch, and the various 'players' I once carried around for music or books. Now that the genie is out of the bottle and our technology is not merely geared for a specific and often singular programmed functionality (a toaster for example), we must learn to work with it like a friend rather than the 'mule' it once was. And while I'm unhappy some of the time with the 'auto-correct' function on my iPhone, it does make typing on a small keypad easier and, of course, it does get smarter with use.
I'm not suggesting that it's all for the best- I teach design visualization with a pen and paper in large part because it's cognitively proven that some thinking (at least for now) is still more powerful when done with analog tools as they seem to spark the imagination in more effective ways and stick in the memory.....but pens are not such an old technology in the grand scheme of things. My apologies for the long post!
best,
Kevin
Kevin Henry, IDSA
Associate Professor, Product Design, Design Department
Columbia College Chicago
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago, Il. 60605
t 312 369 7381
f 312 369 8009
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http://kevinhenry.virb.com/
http://drawingforproductdesigners.com/
http://www.colum.edu/academics/fine-and-performing-arts/art-and-design/faculty.html
http://www.laurenceking.com/us/category/design/drawing-for-product-designers-1/
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From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Jerry Diethelm <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2016 5:58:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Designers in the 22nd century
Jean, Don, Ken et al,
I'm with Jean here. I know that there are those (like Terry, for example)
who define designing as developing design specifications to be handed
forward for implementation. But I know that an active interaction of
thinking/doing and rethinking/redoing into deeper territory works best for
me. Its what I mean by design thinking, where thinking means an
interactive, ongoing, material and social, worldly engagement.
I also use and welcome smart tools, but still try to understand and be wary
of their "second watersheds," so I am the one using the tools and not the
other way around. Even the best and smartest tools won't tell you what
needs doing or what your situated and "encultured" group ought to do.
Jerry
On 11/13/16, 12:27 PM, "Jean Schneider" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> But if I can speak for myself (and some designers, in various fields of
> design, that I know well), sketching, mockups and the time spent in making a
> design sustain a mental and physical engagement that actually fuel the
> thinking process. And, in my personal experience, it is very different from
> being confronted to the evaluation of hundreds of «
> variants/solutions/alternativesŠ » that would be generated by myself,
> assistants, or smart machines. It is, literally, digging deeper in the project
> itself, rather than looking for solutions. I realized that this was the only
> way in which a holistic understanding of the thing-to-come could emerge (and
> isn¹t this, by definition, designing?). Maybe those of you who are interested
> in sketchbooks (e.g. by architects) have noticed that some of them think
> somehow simultaneously on the building or the planning and some cladding or
> panel or window detailŠ
--
Jerry Diethelm
Architect - Landscape Architect
Planning & Urban Design Consultant
Prof. Emeritus of Landscape Architecture
and Community Service € University of Oregon
2652 Agate St., Eugene, OR 97403
€ e-mail: [log in to unmask]
€ web: http://pages.uoregon.edu/diethelm/
€ https://oregon.academia.edu/JerryDiethelm
€ 541-686-0585 home/work 541-346-1441 UO
€ 541-206-2947 work/cell
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