design for life

i found this mini series incredibly interesting
i thought that phillipe stark was very intersting in his opnions and thoughts, so i looked at this series from 2 perspectives, the first being philipes many philosophies and the second the students design process

philipe stark had ALOT of different ideas that he meantioned during the series.x
A couple of ideas that i both liked and agreed with were, first that good "design is about making beautiful, useful, and sustainable objects that can be enjoyed by everyone" this is what i think is the big difference between art and design is, Art tends to only be a medium for a small amount of the eilte population who have so kind of understanding in art rather than a broader more all encompassing interaction that is found in design, which is why i have always loved it.

Stark belives that design should help your tribe, your society, your civilisation to have a better life, and to do so through a useful and sustainable manner. by this i think he means, that products that are of no use to anyone really should not be made, and products that are made should have a profound impact on the user in a way that positively improves their way of living, while i think it is a very noble thing of him to say and i would tend to agree with him in this perspective esspecially talking about usefulness and sustainability, yet i fail to see how he has achieved these things in his design?

from the perspective of the students i would like to say that i believe that the ideas they came up with for the first major project were just terrible, most of them didnt even come up with one product just wishy washy half formed ideas which i was not at all suprised that stark reacted badly to.
i think that some improvemnts were made although i felt that the only viable ideas where the elderly chair aid and the blind plate (although even this did not seem too inovative)
i felt that the students were not deep enough in their thought process and did not come with wordly design solutions.
i think starks decision to let the elderly chair thing and the blind plate thing through was a good desicion compared to the other 2 designs as they were more aimed at helping people.
i think that the design the won had a beautiful form, it looked almost like a sculpture rather than a product yet it was still a usefull product.

one little thing i noticed that made me rather happy, was that the designers did not have to make their models themselves, they got judged purely on form and not on model making skills...

summing up i loved this mini series as it not only gave me insight into how others design, and also their failings but also into philipe starks thoughts and ideas where they come from