Design can also deliver environmental benefits. The “green design” movement is incorporating the principles of sustainability in the design of consumer goods. This approach not only creates products from recycled materials but also designs the products with aneye to their eventual disposal as well as their use. Architecture is likewise going green—in part because architects and designers are understanding that in the United States, buildings generate as much pollution as autos and factories combined. More than 1,100 buildings in the United States have applied to the U.S. Green Building Council to be certified as environmentally friendly.18
If you’re still unconvinced that design can have consequences beyond the carport and cutting board, point your memory back to the 2000 U.S. presidential elections and the thirty-six-day snarl over whether Al Gore or George W. Bush won the most votes in Florida. That election and its aftermath may seem like a bad dream today. But buried in that brouhaha was an important, and mostly ignored, lesson. Democrats alleged that the U.S. Supreme Court, by halting the recount of ballots, handed the election to George W. Bush. Republicans claimed that their opponents tried to steal the election by urging voting officials to count chads—those little rectangular ballot pieces—that were not fully punched out. But the truth is that both sides are wrong.
According to an exhaustive examination of all of Florida’s ballots that several newspapers and academics conducted a year after the election—and whose findings were largely lost amid the coverage of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and utterly forgotten after Bush’s 2004 reelection—what determined who won the U.S. presidency in 2000 was this:
This is the infamous butterfly ballot that voters in Palm Beach County used to mark their choice for President. In Palm Beach County—a heavily Democratic enclave populated by tens of thousands of elderly Jewish voters—ultraconservative fringe candidate Pat Buchanan received 3,407 votes, three times as many votes as he did in any other county in the state. (According to one statistical analysis, if the voting pattern of the state’s other sixty-six counties had held in Palm Beach, Buchanan would have won only 603 votes.)19 What’s more, 5,237 Palm Beach County voters marked ballots for both Al Gore and Pat Buchanan, and therefore had their ballots invalidated. Bush carried the entire state by 537 votes.
What explained Buchanan’s stunning performance and the thousands of invalidated ballots?
Bad design.
The nonpartisan investigation found that what decided the outcome in Palm Beach County—and therefore determined who would become leader of the free world—wasn’t an evil Supreme Court or recalcitrant chads. It was bad design. The bewildering butterfly ballot confused thousands of voters and cost Gore the presidency, according to the professor who headed the project. “Voters’ confusion with ballot instruction and design and voting machines appears to have changed the course of U.S. history.”20 Had Palm Beach County had a few artists in the room when it was designing its ballot, the course of U.S. history would likely have been different.*
Now, intelligent people can argue whether the butterfly ballot and the confusion it wrought ultimately produced a good or bad result for the country. And this isn’t partisan sniping from somebody—full disclosure—who worked for Al Gore ten years ago and who remains a registered Democrat. Bad design could have worked to Democrats’ advantage and the Republicans’ chagrin—and one day it likely will. But whatever our own partisan persuasion, we should consider the butterfly ballot the Conceptual Age equivalent of the Sputnik launch. It was a surprising, world-changing event that revealed how weak Americans were in what we’d now discovered was a fundamentally important strength—design.
DESIGN IS a high-concept aptitude that is difficult to outsource or automate—and that increasingly confers a competitive advantage in business. Good design, now more accessible and affordable than ever, also offers us a chance to bring pleasure, meaning, and beauty to our lives. But most important, cultivating a design sensibility can make our small planet a better place for us all. “To be a designer is to be an agent of change,” says CHAD’s Barbara Chandler Allen. “Think of how much better the world is going to be when CHAD kids pour into the world.”
*The correct answers are: 1-b, 2-c, 3-a
*Less well known is the ballot in Duval County in which the presidential ballot showed five candidates on one page and another five candidates on the next page, along with instructions to “vote every page.” In that county, 7,162 Gore ballots were tossed out because voters selected two candidates for President. Had the instructions been clearer, Duval County, too, would have provided Gore the margin of victory.
Keep a Design Notebook.
Buy a small notebook and begin carrying it with you wherever you go. When you see great design, make a note of it. (Example: my $6.95 Hotspot silicone trivet—a thin, flexible square that doubles as a pot holder, triples as a jar opener, and looks cool.) Do the same for flawed design. (Example: the hazard light button in my car, which is so close to the gearshift that I often turn on the hazards when I put the car in PARK.) Before long, you’ll be looking at graphics, interiors, environments, and much more with greater acuity. And you’ll understand in a deeper way how design decisions shape our everyday lives. Be sure to include the design of experiences as well—buying a cup of coffee, taking a trip on an airplane, going to an emergency room. If you’re not a note-taker, carry around a small digital camera or camera cell phone instead and snap photos of good and bad design.
Channel Your Annoyance.
1. Choose a household item that annoys you in any way.
2. Go by yourself to a café with pen and paper, but without a book and without a newspaper, and, for the duration of your cup of coffee, think about improving the poorly designed item.
3. Send the idea/sketch as it is to the manufacturer of your annoying household item.
You never know what might come of it.
The above from Stefan Sagmeister, graphic design impresario. (More info: www.sagmeister.com)
Read Design Magazines.
Professional designers read (and obsess over) design magazines. So should you (except for the obsess part). Reading design magazines—or just leafing through them—can sharpen your eye and inspire your mind. While hundreds of design magazines—many of which merely fetishize expensive things—fill the newsstands, these eight are on my must-read list:
Ambidextrous—A project of Stanford University’s d. school, this quirky magazine explores the craft of design and the nuances of design thinking. (More info: www.ambidextrousmag.com)
Dwell—One of the most respected shelter magazines, Dwell has an ethic of public service and environmental responsibility that helps it stand out. (More info: www.dwellmag.com)
HOW—This terrific magazine mostly focuses on graphic design. It also has lots of smart business advice, reading recommendations, and an annual design competition that’s a great source of ideas.
(More info: www.howdesign.com)
iD—This award-winning magazine is well known for its Annual Design Review, which singles out the year’s best designs—and for the iD 40, which introduces readers to up-and-coming designers.
(More info: www.idonline.com)
Metropolis—With a strong emphasis on construction and materials, this magazine offers tremendous insight into the built environment. I also like its coverage of sustainable design. (More info: www.metropolismag.com)
O Magazine—Oprah Winfrey’s publication, which bears its creator’s design sensibility, is one of my three favorite magazines of any kind. Period. Read it, know it, live it.
(More info: www.oprah.com/omagazine)
Print—Another great graphic design magazine, this one is known for its voluminous Regional Design Annual.
(More info: www.printmag.com)
Real Simple—One designer I know calls this magazine her bible. Its theology is straightforward: “to bring clarity to everyday tasks, so readers can focus on what really adds meaning to their lives.”
(More info: www.realsimple.com)
Be Like Karim.
In response to my request for advice on how those of us who aren’t professional designers can incorporate a design sensibility into our lives, Karim Rashid sent me his “Karimanifesto,” a fifty-point guide to life and design. Here are some excerpts:
1. Don’t specialize.
5. Before giving birth to anything physical, ask yourself if you have created an original idea, an original concept, if there is any real value in what you disseminate.
6. Know everything about the history of your profession and then forget it all when you design something new.
7. Never say “I could have done that” because you didn’t.
24. Consume experiences, not things.
33. Normal is not good.
38. There are three types of beings—those who create culture, those who buy culture, and those who don’t give a shit about culture. Move between the first two.
40. Think extensively, not intensively.
43. Experience is the most important part of living, and the exchange of ideas and human contact is all life really is. Space and objects can encourage increased experiences or distract from our experiences.
50. Here and now is all we got.
The above from Karim Rashid, one the most world’s most versatile, prolific, and celebrated designers. (More info: www.karimrashid.com)
Become a Design Detective.
It’s a favorite hobby of the real estate–obsessed and the just plain nosy: visiting open houses. Follow their example and spend a Sunday walking through other people’s homes. Scour the real estate ads in search of residences likely to yield an eclectic mix of design ideas and insights. Tour a half dozen homes and look for design trends and commonalities, as well as unique or quirky expressions of the owners’ personalities and tastes. Take a page from architect Sarah Susanka, author of The Not So Big House, and “notice what constitutes the spaces that feel good to you. Try to determine if they appeal on an emotional level or in a physical way. And try to articulate why.”
Perhaps turn this into a group outing by collecting several friends and heading off to different open houses. Gather at the end of the day to compare notes. And be sure to take advantage of decorator show homes and neighborhood house tours. They can provide a healthy dose of design diversity in just a few hours.
The snooping approach can also work on the job. Next time you’re at someone else’s workplace, look around. How does the physical environment make you feel? Would you be productive and happy in this kind of setting? How do the layout, the lighting, and the furniture enhance or impede how people interact and communicate? What design elements would you incorporate into your own workplace?
Participate in the “Third
Industrial Revolution.”
If we’re all designers, what better way to get started than by designing something yourself? “In the future,” says Italian designer Gaetano Pesce, “customers will expect original objects. What I call the third industrial revolution will give people the opportunity to have a unique piece.” You can sample the revolution by designing your own Nike shoe—with the color, pattern, and image that’s right for you. (More info: nikeid.nike.com) You can also do the same with Vans skate shoes. (More info: www.vans.com) Or, for the ultimate expression of individuality, use your handwriting to create your very own font. (More info: www.fontifier.com) “The proliferation of mass customization of consumer products,” designer David Small told me, “will have a powerful and empowering effect on how ordinary people see design.”
Visit a Design Museum.
Fine art has always found a home in museums. But applied art—that is, design—has often been consigned to rickety file cabinets and designers’ basements. Fortunately, that’s changing. Several large cities now boast museums devoted to industrial, graphic, interior, and architectural design. These museums, rich with examples and explanations, offer a great way to deepen your design sensibility. Here are ten of the best.
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (New York City)—The Cooper-Hewitt’s extraordinary permanent collection is one of the largest design troves in the world, featuring everything from a Michelangelo drawing to Eva Zeisel saltshakers. The exhibits are always wonderful, especially those that include pieces from the National Design Triennial, which the Cooper-Hewitt hosts.
(More info: www.ndm.si.edu)
Design Exchange (Toronto)—This museum and research center takes its name from its building, the site of Toronto’s first stock exchange. Today the museum serves a dual purpose: touting the best of Canadian design and teaching visitors about the variety of design in the world. (More info: www.dx.org)
Design Museum (London)—The brainchild of Sir Terence Conran, this two-floor museum features rotating exhibits of twentieth-and twenty-first-century design. The gift shop and children’s activities are first-rate. Its location near the Tower of London introduced me to a part of London I’d never explored.
(More info: www.designmuseum.org)
Eames House (Los Angeles)—The husband and wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are perhaps the most famous furniture designers of the twentieth century. The home that they built as a case study, and that they lived in much of their lives, is now a showcase of their work. You can view it only by appointment. But once or twice a year, Eames officials will open the house for public tours.
(More info: www.eamesoffice.org/visit_house.html)
Herbert Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography (New York City)—Visit this quiet place in New York’s East Village and you’ll never look at graphic design the same way. The center, dedicated to preserving seminal works of graphic design, serves mostly as a research facility for students and faculty of the Cooper Union. While it sometimes has public exhibitions, you’ll need to make an appointment to see the good stuff.
(More info: www.cooper.edu/art/lubalin)
Museum of Modern Art, Architecture and Design Department (New York City)—MoMA, of course, is one of the world’s finest art museums. But it was also one of the first U.S. museums to devote display space to design and architecture. Its permanent collection—which has everything from sports cars to furniture to posters to appliances—is a required stop for your design education. (More info: www.moma.org/collection/depts/arch_design)/
National Building Museum (Washington, D.C.)—This is one of the most beautiful museums in Washington, worth visiting simply to step into the Great Hall and gaze at the ceiling for five minutes. But if you stay longer, you’ll usually find excellent exhibitions on architecture and urban design, often with a public-spirited bent. The children’s programs also are excellent.
(More info: www.nbm.org)
Victoria and Albert Museum (London)—Britain’s cavernous national museum of art and design features some two thousand years of extraordinary design—from tenth-century Egyptian vases to twentieth-century Eames storage units. Great kids’ activities here, too. (More info: www.vam.ac.uk)
Vitra Design Museum (Weil am Rhein, Germany)—Located in a building designed by Frank Gehry, this museum offers regular exhibitions on the best industrial design in Europe.
(More info: www.design-museum.de)
William F. Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)—This fascinating contemporary museum is part of the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design. Most of the exhibits highlight print design, but you can find some interesting industrial design here as well. (More info: www.eisnermuseum.org)
C-R-A-P-ify Your Graphic Design.
Robin Williams (no, not that one) is one of today’s best design writers. Her book, The Non-Designer’s Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice, is a gem, in no small measure because she spells out the four basics of effective graphic design:
1. Contrast. “If the elements (type, color, size, line thicknesses, shape, space, etc.) are not the same, then make them very different.”
2. Repetition. Repeating visual elements “helps
develop the organization and strengthens the unity” of your brochure, newsletter, or letterhead.
3. Alignment. “Nothing should be placed on the page arbitrarily. Every element should have some visual connection with another element on the page.”
4. Proximity. “Items relating to each other should be grouped close together.”
Check out Williams’s book for examples. If you heed her C, R, A, and P, you'll avoid printed materials that look like, uh, not very good.
(More info: www.ratz.com)
Put It on a Table.
Find an object in your life that holds a special place in your heart—an old shirt from your college days, a perfectly butt-conforming wallet, a favorite serving spoon, a cool new watch. Place it on a table in front of you or hold it in your hand. Then explore the following questions:
1. When you look at or use this object, what does it make you think of? Past experiences? The skill with which you can use it? The person who made it? There will be some satisfying experience or feeling that you may be able to uncover.
2. How does this object affect each of your five senses? There will be a series of details or aspects of design that will trigger your senses.