Design has a problem with Order. As designers, we spend so much time putting things in the right places that we tend to forget people are not pixels, and their behaviour won’t fit in a grid. Worst of all, we think we’re helping or even saving them. How arrogant is that?
A few posts ago, I shared a definition of design by Viktor Papanek:
Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order.1
I anticipated a few problems regarding the idea of imposing order. You can read the entire piece here:
I teach a module at BAU College of Arts and Design in Barcelona on transformation in/through/by design (do I even know?). Beyond teaching, my role is to plant a seed about what’s social and political in designing. To help them overcome the methods and tools and embrace the messiness of the context. Is there anything beyond context?
It is no simple task to let go of the urge to order, to break away from our role as creators. Coming down to earth and becoming entangled in the complexity of the social is the opposite of being short-sighted—it does not require to lose sight of the whole—, it means working alongside people to transform our shared systems, instead of trying to arrange them from above.
Everyday, embodied systemic design is not a design discipline and should not be disciplined, but if appreciated and nurtured, it can contribute to a more relational, pluriversal shaping of social systems.
There are unanswered questions regarding the role of the professional designer in a scenario where everybody designs. While I believe there’s room for design as mediation and facilitation, maybe even for a level of tidiness, designers need to get out of the studio, leave the lab so they can live.
In their discomfort and disorientation, they shall find a new discourse.
Papanek, V. (2019). Design for the Real World. Human Ecology and Social Change (Third Edition). Thames and Hudson Ltd.
Vink, J. (2023). Embodied Everyday Systemic Design A Pragmatist Perspective. Design Issues, 39(4), 35–48. https://doi.org/10.1162/desi_a_00731