ABSTRACT
Students of product design are frequently told they should not be designing for themselves; they need to design for the client. In effect, this means that the gift of creativity becomes divested of personal impetus and is directed towards the needs of a highly constrained, economically efficient industrial system. This distances the designer from the world. First, there is the disconnect between the designer and the making – the materials, their sources, the processes, the people, the working conditions – in industrial zones that are often thousands of miles away from the design office. Second, there is the disconnect between the designer and the many different environments in which the products are used. Mass-produced goods can be found in all kinds of contexts but their fundamental qualities of ‘thingness’ mean they have no specific connection to place, community or the individual. Perhaps this is why these products seem so alien and detached from our essential humanity; their shiny regularity creates a world that is impersonal, unnatural and sterile.
