THE GOOD IS IN THE DESIGN

“Occupy Design is a grassroots project connecting designers with on-the-ground demonstrators in the Occupy Together movement. The project’s goal is to create freely available visual tools around a common graphic language to unite the 99%. The project places an emphasis on producing infographics and icons to improve the communication of the movement’s messages and the data surrounding them across the world.”

Protest signs and environmental/directional signage is freely available for download and reproduction, a request form is taking in ideas for additional graphics, and flickr and twitter are being used to collect additional designs from the community at large as well as exhibit usage of the occupy design contributions on the street.

(Source: occupydesign.org)

RepRap has fabulous implications for creating a more sustainable goods manufacturing and commerce system. At the rate at which this model is being developed, 15 years from now a transition to transporting only production materials instead of transporting production materials AND finished goods sounds like a reality. Then, products which are made out of particularly rare or production-intensive materials would show their true cost in comparison to those which take less work to procure and refine. 

An additional vision is that of the great diversity in object design which would proliferate from the increase of production (and therefore design) points around the world. While trends will always emerge and certain designs will be found to be quite popular for one reason or another, there will also be room for the return of the maker’s mark. In the realm of non-functional design (primarily decorative designs) it will bring about a great proliferation of motifs and styles, since the rules of mass production such as ubiquitous appeal will no longer apply. Imagine a world in which the forms of everyday objects are each as unique as the people use them. One might own a cell phone that, while it has the same functions, OS and service provider of their neighbor’s cell phone, it is a phone that is designed to cradle comfortably in their hand only, or the casing is embedded with an image of their first dog.

It sounds like a world in which we could use a lot of designers.

BBCX365 project by Johnny Selman aims to interest the population in reading the news. Over the course of one year a poster is made each day to illustrate a headline from BBC news.

H2design sells wall stickers that serve as playful reminders of how our everyday activities relate to the environment.