A system in need of design

I have been, along with a small number of people from my workplace, “teaching” a product innovation class in a local design school. They are third year students that have gone through a schooling process and will be out in 6 months, looking for a job. A few days ago we met one of their teachers, responsible for “methodology” in the first year, someone who sat down with the students and gave them directions on how to conceptualize in design. He is now going to pick up the same students he had in the first year and maybe try and understand how much of his so called methodology is still in use, maybe build on that. I hope he is able to correct his own methods based on what he finds out from this experience; or perhaps not! He showed me work he did with these students in the first year, A3 boards filled with black & white scribbles and drawings, organized in some organic fashion, symbolizing conceptual exercises the students did. These same students the other day, after me and my colleagues gave them 5 solid classes without letting them drawn a single line asked timidly “what can a designer do in the midst of this complex mess”. They were referring to the applied innovation process we are sharing with them, where you have to understand context, actors, needs before diving into solutions – something natural for a designer. A long story to state something obvious; we have a problem.

Now think about this, there is more than one way to look at it.

I believe some people, including in my own workplace, would say this is the typical problem of a design school being completely detached from the reality of design nowadays, preparing designers to be designauthors instead of preparing designers to identify, understand, think and act upon the system where products are inserted; ah, yes, CONCEPTUALIZE. They would say that schools are still focusing on producing nice looking designs, instead of teaching them about process. They would say that these schools, the curricula and the teachers are responsible for “producing” designers that are put out in the market without the ability to work as design specialists in teams, without scope and vision, without solid methods to produce really valuable designs.

Now I go back to that young designer’s timid question “what can a designer do in the midst of this complex mess”. We all start with the utopian “save / improve the world” typical designer attitude and the basic skills and methods a designer starts with – sketching and drawing skills, extended into a visual and oral communication ability. Then we learn how to think, become more aware of the material world around, of people and of ourselves, we build on our own skills and define our professional ambition. Yes, a lot of us want to be Starck’s and Ito’s, we are not the only profession producing icons that reflect a certain lifestyle and coolness, I am sure student architects want to be Foster’s and Calatrava’s and student painters Bacon’s and Rego’s. It doesn’t really matter if these icons are, above all, entrepreneurs in their business, managers of small to large teams where a lot of other professionals work without recognition. They are actors in the material world, the same material world where designers act.

The whole issue starts with a disregard for these basic designer skills. The whole thing started when schools stopped filtering designers that didn’t have these basic skills, when the profession of industrial design opened to anyone, no matter if you could communicate visually (above all) or not. It mattered if you could think. Ah, yes, think! But Hey, Mischa Black stated that sketching was thinking with your hands, and if you really SEE a designer sketching, you will understand exactly that. Through sketching, he is exploring possibilities, taking into account everything that engages with the product, maintaining focus on the solution as a sum of all worries, of all opportunities. The moment you state that a designer does not need to know how to sketch, think while you sketch, you open the door to designer friends and foes – today, you can have a design degree and hardly know how to think with your hands. You open the door to design planners, to design managers, to design lovers and critics, to designer wannabies. A lot of these, recognising that they can’t sketch, will engage into devaluating this essential part of designing and become, in fact, designer’s worst enemy, an enemy from inside that uses the ability of others to raise his profile.

I never though I’d make this analogy, but here I am... It’s a little bit like football (European, I mean). Everyone loves to take a shot at the players calling them dumb. Of course, we measure their thinking ability by the spoken word, usually through television. It never occurs to us that these people are specialists and they function in a different hemisphere. Cultured journalists know this, but they don’t care. We appreciate a player that is able to score, but above all, a player that “thinks”. The reality is that they all have to think with their feet, some think better than others, but this thinking HAS to result in goals. The football business is also filled with football planners, managers, lovers, critics and wannabies. Just like in other sectors, the football business is filled with people that make a lot of money from the system without ever touching a football. But contrary to the field of design, we make no confusion about who is the football player and who isn’t. It is far from a good system, but I believe it serves the purpose.

Maybe the kid has a good point. I believe we need to go back to being designers and understand that the complex system where products are set needs to be tinkered by professionals and each should know their job. The job of the product designer is to change, alter, break, elude, circumvent, push the system tough design, through the clever convergence of all possibilities and opportunities in a product. That’s also when innovation occurs, real innovation only exists when you change, alter, break, elude, circumvent, push some part of a system. Though design is still the best tool to do more of the same when you can’t / won’t touch the system... Products are good system changers and designers are good change drivers. They are not the only ones, you can change logistics, finance, production standards and innovate the system. In fact, strong and lasting innovation is when you do this in various parts of the system, various NODEs. The iPod (I know, I know, but it is a bloody strong business innovation) is a product driver in a sector that has been changed dramatically from inside, from how you download music to how you pay for it. The system had to be changed in order for innovation to take place. The product is a driver, it is the sum of all opportunities that the system provides.

Designers, let’s get back to designing, let the other guys tinker with the other parts of the system.