Design, the Future & the Human Spirit Victor Margolin

1. Design, the Future & the Human SpiritVictor Margolin • Designers can work for the Public Good • Designers ‘ responsibility to contribute in constructive way • Ways designers can contribute? • Prescriptive Scenarios

2. Design for Socially Responsible BehaviorTromp, Kekkert, Verbeek Principle argument: Designers can facilitate Individual concerns to align with Collective concerns to act based on the larger Public Good • Intervention methods: Can change, User determines category 1. Coerce 2. Persuade 3. Seduce 4. Decisive Strategies Based on Individual Concerns- pp 13-17

4. “In the 1960s I saw graphic design as a noble endeavor, integral to larger planning, architectural and social issues. Aspen Design Conference 1966, Paul Rand

5. What I realized in the 1970s, when I was doing major corporate identity projects, is that design had become a preoccupation with what things look like rather than with what they mean. • Citicorp, Citibank Identification Program, • AnspachGrossman Portugal • 1975

6. What designers were doing was creating visual identities for other people - not unlike the work of fashion stylists, political image consultants or plastic surgeons. • Eye Bee M poster • Paul Rand • 1981

7. We had become experts who suggest how other people can project a visual impression that reflects who they think they are. P Rand 1956-1985

8. And we have deceived ourselves into thinking that the modernization service we supply has the same integrity as service to the public good. Modernism forfeited its claim to a moral authority when designers sold it away as corporate style. http://www.designhistory.org/Post_mod.html PRand, 1985

9. “He invented the term Radical Modernism to distance himself from both the formal constraints of Modernism and the post modern label.” http://www.designhistory.org/Post_mod.html TM Magazine Cover DF, 1972

10. ”a reaffirmation of the idealistic roots of our modernity, adjusted to include more of our diverse culture, history, research, and fantasy." 1994, D Friedman House Interior, DF @ 1978

11. “His approach is eminently reasonable and certainlyresponds to the mix of tastes, styles, and ethnicities, that have asserted a presence withinour emerging vision of global culture.” V Margolin House Interior, DF @ 1978

12. “…design was in crisis and urged designers to see their work in a larger cultural context…” 3 Mile Island, painted lamp w found objects, DF @ 1985

13. PROJECTS OF OPTIMISMDan Friedman* • Live & work with passion & responsibility. • Try to express personal, spiritual, & domestic values even if our culture continues to be dominated by corporate, marketing, & institutional values. • Choose to remain progressive; don’t be regressive. Find comfort in the past only if it expands insight into the future, & not just for the sake of nostalgia. • Embrace the richness of all cultures; be inclusive instead of exclusive.

14. Think of your work as a significant element in the context of a more important, transcendental purpose. • Use your work to become advocates of projects for the public good. • Attempt to become a cultural provocateur; be a leader rather than a follower.

15. Engage in self-restraint; accept the challenge of working with reduced expectations & diminished resources. • Avoid getting stuck in corners, such as being a servant to increasing overhead, careerism, or narrow points of view. • Bridge the boundaries that separate us from other creative professions & unexpected possibilities.

16. Use the new technologies, but don’t be seduced into thinking that they provide answers to fundamental questions. • Be radical. *p 209, Radical Modernism Logo for exhibit: Radical Modernism, Moore College of Art & Design, 1994, Philadelphia

17. “Premature specialization in schools perpetuates a similar isolation in practice and works against the hybridization that is increasingly desirable in real professions.” • Does it Make Sense, Design quarterly. April Greiman, 1986