Design For Life

I think Starcks philosophy of design is great and his avant guarde approach to design definitely stands out from the rest, even if some of the designs arent as practical as they could be. On a whole however I think the show was relatively unsuccessful. The designers that became a part of the competition hardly possessed much skill and knowledge of design which was somewhat of a surprise. A lot of the contestants were design graduates and appeared to produce ideas that were very basic not to mention they didn't even have an understanding of CAD programs and some couldn't even draw - I mean what did they even study at uni? The only person who seemed to have some understanding was Ilsa, as she should being a product design lecturer, however even her presentation of concepts was unclear. I found it very suprising that when presenting to one of the best designers in the world in a competition, none of the contestants presented in a professional way. Each episode I thought their presentations would gain a bit more 'wow' factor but they never did and only with the inclusion of their models, not even made by them, did their concepts come together. I think the show would have been much more successful if the applicants to the competition were chosen more carefully or if the show was more of an insight into Starcks way of thinking.

I think one of the stand out points though was that "designers must question if they need to make more products". In the end it is going to be up to designers to create products that are sustainable and not just ones made to replace a previous one. Product Designs need to produces product which are more timeless such as the example of the glass bowl which Ilsa brought it. Products must be things of value that should be held onto and not so easily replaced. We must look out to the world when designing to help it and each other "your internal search is your own personality, your memories, your recollections, the creative influences that you've soaked up over time. The second source of ideas comes from looking outside, from observation, talking to people, from seeing what's happening in the world around us."

One final point that stuck out to me was when the contestants had to follow up their concepts with branding and advertising. I thought it was interesting that designers much take part in their advertising and brand image to convey the right message of their product. "A Brand is 3 things, a promise, an experience and a memory" i thought this was a very interesting quote because it simply describes how important the image of a product can be.