Design for the Real World

A new show at Cooper-Hewitt examines solutions for "the rest of the world" from the design perspective of "what does the person need".

Unfortunately, that sounds like a novel idea.

Design for the Developing World is an audio piece from theworld.org.
"A new exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York highlightssimple technology and design concepts that can be used to improve thelives of poor people in the developing world. "

The Cooper-Hewitt site "Design for the other 90%" has several examples of how these programs have been implemented. I'm disappointed that communications(tele) does not have its own focus area.

"Why are designers so focused on designing for the wealthiest 10%?" is covered at livemint.com.

These pieces are evocative of the foundation work done by people like Victor Papanek's reality-based thinking in Design for the Real World, Buckminster Fuller's spaceship earth canonical "design for everything" principles out of his book Critical Path, and other good practices in understanding what the Spice Girls were at with the "tell me what you want what you really really want".

This might be a good day to shift to decaf. Or not.

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