Design after the end of the world
Is there a future for designers outside of capitalism?
“What will the future of design look like?” is a question that has been ringing in my ears ever since I started design school four years ago. The question is very important, as designers it is our job to both envision and create a future we want to see. In design school, we learn to tackle envisioning the future through many lenses: sustainability, technological innovation, social equity, etc. What if we took it a step further? What if we began inquiring about a future of design outside of our current economic model?
What was just a shower thought, has turned into a rabbit hole I’ve found myself trapped. I’ve asked peers, scoured the internet for opinion pieces, and even asked an AI program if it can imagine a world of design detached from capitalism. In no way am I saying I found anything close to an answer or know what it would look like. Instead, as a young designer, I’m asking other designers if they have also tried answering this question. If not, here are a few questions you may want to ponder in your next shower.
Who decides what is innovative?
“Good design is innovative” is Dieter Ram’s 1st rule in his 10 Principles of Good Design.
We’re taught that in the design process the user-research phase should be just as long and thorough as the ideation and creation phase. This is to ensure that as designers we are empathizing with our users, to find what fits their needs, and thus create a truly “innovative product.”
Like most things, innovation is never that simple and design does not exist in a vacuum. Instead, designers are usually mediators, employed by third parties to find a compromise between user needs and an already established design criteria set by past earnings, trend forecasts, and competitor analyses.
Diminishing the role of a designer to a mediator between the user and economic value, not only limits an individual designer’s creativity but perpetuates visual monotony across many design fields. We see this take form in everything from digital interfaces to shoe design where brands start to look like iterations of one another. If we can see visual design languages being limited within this system, then how do we suppose it is affecting innovation?
Anticipating A Shifting Design Landscape
As frustrating as the system is, this model highlights how designers have the power to shape and inform users’ everyday lives by exercising authority over the objects and experiences that make up their everyday experiences.
I am not saying that designers should not be mediators for third parties, but rather I emphasize the position of power designers are in when given the opportunity to empathize and advocate for the users. Designers’ access to decision-making and materializing how others may interact with the world is where our power resides in an economic model based on an endless and unsustainable growth system.
Take for example how the Internet has forever changed the way we interact with consumerism. The distance between producers and consumers is shrinking as we watch the digital landscape evolve. This growing interconnectedness is not only transforming our social and cultural systems but also in our economic system.
We may not be able to fully comprehend the full effects of this change, but as designers, we have the tools to envision and propose ways of being through and after this change. We have the skill set to both empathize with our user’s needs as well as communicate design solutions to many different stakeholders. Design is synonymous with change and the future is created in the present.
The phrase “think outside of the box” is only helpful until you wish the box wasn’t there to begin with. As we see these systems beginning to change, is the next step to find design solutions that go beyond the capitalist principle that efficiency and productivity are the keys to human flourishing?
Conclusion
I have very much only touched the tip of the iceberg in a very speculative, nuanced discussion about the role of design after capitalism. But it is a discussion that is becoming increasingly more relevant if we want to have a future of design that is more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable. Frederic Jameson stated that it is now “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism.” Although I don’t think either is going to happen anytime soon, inquiring about the future of design outside the system as we know it could lead to more meaningful and long-lasting designs today.
For fun, I asked the AI-powered program DALL-E what it thinks a design world outside of capitalism would look like. Just like me, it didn’t have a very clear picture, but we’ll see who will determine the future of design: technology or people.
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Works Cited
“Design after Capitalism: AIGA Design Educators Community.” Design Educators Community Design After Capitalism Comments. Accessed November 7, 2022. https://educators.aiga.org/design-after-capitalism/.
Drucker, Peter. “Post-Capitalist Society,” 2012. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780080938257.
Wizinsky, Matthew. Design after Capitalism: Transforming Design Today for an Equitable Tomorrow. Cambridge (Mass.): The MIT Press, 2022.
Wright, Alex. “Post-Capitalist Design.” Medium. Medium, November 30, 2018. https://medium.com/@awright249/post-capitalist-design-ff044cb1d195.
