What is the role of design in society? Mokena Makeka and Rory Williams asked Michael Wolf, chairman of the Cape Town Design Network, for his views.
You have said that design has an identity problem in Cape Town. What is the problem?
The biggest misconception about design is that it’s all about “making things pretty” or “styling”, a term coined by 1950s American design icon Raymond Loewy. Back then, styling of industrial products was used as a marketing tool to fuel sales of consumer goods.
Although aesthetics remains a part of it, design has an important role in optimising the built environment, functionally, organisationally and emotionally – it’s a broad problem-solving process.
The association of design with arts and crafts and other cultural activities creates a huge identity problem for design, and not only in Cape Town.
Designers do not express their personal views or interpretation of the world as artists do, but respond to the challenges of the people they are designing for. Design is a needs-driven, user-centred process. It is an entirely different approach from art.
For the rest of the interview please go ahead and click the link below.
World Design Capital 2014 Website
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 Comments:
Post a Comment