A couple of years ago we stood in a branch of a major German electronics chain in disbelieving silence.
An electric pasta cooker.
Disbelief turned to sorrow.
An electric pasta cooker. With a 24 hour programmable timer.
After 85 million years man had reached and passed the zenith of his evolution. We now found ourselves on the downward spiral back to the pond.
Sorrow turned to loneliness.
The experience did however highlight for us the paradox of a career as a product designer.
You're trained to design things. Yet from your training you know that not only do we not really need that many new things, but that socially and environmentally we can't afford ever more new products.
How do you justify your contribution to a situation you know is unjustifiable?
A particularly intelligent contribution to this debate is the book "One Hundred An Experiment on Myself: A Designer's Reckoning With Things" by Moritz Grund - winner of the 2012 Wilhelm Braun-Feldweg-Förderpreis für Design Criticism, Germany's, if not Europe's, only award for student design writing.
In the course of some 10,000 words Moritz Grund discusses possessions and product design in the context of an attempt to reduce his own number of belongings down to 100 - a symbolic target that relates to the number of objects he possessed on first moving to Berlin. Important for the experiment however isn't the target, but the reduction and the reduction process.
Told in a collection of largely personal short stories that describes Moritz's journey through life as much as his experiment, "One Hundred" is a neatly constructed argument for more responsibility from consumers and more honesty from designers. (Moritz speaks specifically about product designers, we'd happily add fashion designers and graphic designers to the list. And font designers. And photographers - can you really justify another black and white photo of an old wrinkly faced cigar smoking Cuban? No, really, can you?)
A recurring theme in the text is "Less is More"
"Less is More" as in: Through reducing your number of possessions you discover more pleasure in those that you do have.
"Less is More" as in: Through reducing your number of possessions you understand the restrictions placed on you by the act of possessing.
"Less is More" as in: Through reducing the number of complicated words and constructions employed you create a better text.
Which would be our one criticism of "One Hundred".
Moritz deliberately avoids the use of unspecific, subjective terms such as "beautiful" or "organic", which is good; but he also tends to gratuitous formulations and word choices.
At times it reads as if he is tyring just a little too hard, and on a couple of occasions very nearly runs the text aground with his attempts at showing off his luxury cruise liner to .... sorry, finding the appropriate metaphor or adverb.
Complicated constructions and the lack of any humour in the text. They would be our two criticisms. At times "One Hundred" can get quite dry, becomes seemingly unending. And in those moments we crave a distracting lightness.
Conveniently, in his introduction to "One Hundred" the Dutch designer, author, moderator, etc, Lucas Verweij ably demonstrates exactly the sort of untroubled ease we hope Moritz can bring to his texts in the coming years.
Which isn't to denounce "One Hundred" as unreadable twaddle.
Far from it.
"One Hundred" is a very readable, enjoyable, text that presents a subject we all claim to understand from a perspective that means we can all truly understand it.
We all know that we consume and possess outwith all bounds of natural reason. Yet writing a book saying "Don't own so much, cause like if you do you'll like destroy the planet like" is akin to writing a book saying "Don't smoke so much, it's bad for you."
True. And?
We don't need books telling us what to do. We need arguments we can relate to and that help us move towards making, and ultimately taking responsibility for, our own decisions and actions.
Kate Moss was once, allegedly, quoted out of context, as, allegedly, saying that, allegedly, "Nothing tastes as good as being skinny feels"
Repeat that to yourself six times a day and you will never eat a bar of chocolate ever again.
"Kate Moss says eat less chocolate or you'll get fat!" wouldn't have the same effect.
Similarly when Moritz Grund describes emptying his cellar on the principle of "Either I had something to hand or I didn't own it. I've no access to something I can't see and so it's no use to me. It's only access to my possessions that enables using them", you start considering your own home in a new light. Not just the cellar and hall cupboards become testament to your own contribution to over-production and resource depletion, but also your wardrobes, kitchen cupboards, bookcases....
"Clean out your cellar. You've got too much stuff" ?
The question is will "One Hundred" find an echo? Or is Moritz Grund screaming into a void?
Who reads books about design theory? Who reads serious design criticism?
Consumers? No. They're all to busy filling their pinterest accounts with photos of products they found on a blog full of pretty photos of the "ain't that cute/cool/retro/" nature.
Product designers? Product designers don't read books about design theory. Far less attempt to formulate their own position through the craft of writing. Something Moritz and Lucas both rightly bemoan in their texts.
Design journalists? How many design critics can you name? How many publications can you name who have a regular design column? TV stations? Most design journalists aren't. And aren't paid to be. They're paid to be lifestyle journalists. Or gadget journalists. Or trend journalists.
Which is all the more perverse given the central role design allegedly plays in our lives. How design au fait we're always being told we are.
How many times have you read the word "design" in product advertising today? Design is used by the marketing industry to sell us things.
But no one is interested in design.
"One Hundred" wont change that. But it does prove that good, well considered, well argumented design writing needn't be full of complex arguments involving "functional form language" or "paradigm shifts" or "post-modernist androgyny"
Sometimes it can just be about pizza dough, house plants and storing beer in the bath at parties.
And once you understand that, design arguments become arguments about responsibility. And then you can disagree with them, and come back at the author with a counter argument that helps move the debate on a little further.
And then we will truly be in position to develop fewer, better products.
Loneliness turns to hope.
"One Hundred An Experiment on Myself: A Designer's Reckoning With Things" by Moritz Grund is published by Niggli Verlag as a bi-lingiual English/German text.
