Marketing campaigns are strategised to stimulate our quest for perfection and peer approval. Yet their success is largely a function of the strength of the USPs (unique selling propositions), among which product design is an integral part of the equation. In a consumerist society, our preoccupation with the ongoing acquisition of goods is also partly perpetuated by planned or psychological product obsolescence which artificially reinforces our behaviour to ‘purchase, discard and upgrade’. Where will it end?
The induced desire to follow new design trends and disassociate with a particular look of sunglasses or car model, for example, reinforces the value judgment that design becomes outmoded over time. A counter trend in the fashion industry, however, resurrects old styles every three decades, subtly modifying and reinventing an outdated look and feel, borrowing classic elements from the vintage.
The constant imperative to review design – to satisfy the consumer need for ‘trendiness’, does, in my opinion, serve a useful yet hidden function. As we rethink and refine our design perspective, we move into a future where functionality ever-increasingly flirts with purity of line. Design by necessity will continue evolving until ergonomics (function) and beauty (form) will have seamlessly merged. At this transcendent point in time, design will have been perfected and our yearning for its evolution will have been quenched.
Liberated from the endless distraction of fashion and fads – seductively (yet deceitfully) packaged as lifestyle enhancers – our consciousness will soar above materialist mundanity. Design fusion will have extruded the best from a confusion of styles, resulting in a refinement that hopefully embodies a universal truth. Everyday utilitarian objects will be imbued with an absolute beauty while expressing an intuitive functionalism. Design will have lost its edge.
