Design is in

'Amore' ring made from cubic zirconia diamonds

Mining of diamonds has a considerable harmful impact on the land, and the people of the area. DIAZ Fine Jewelry is a company dedicated to producing ‘green’ diamonds, which are made entirely in a lab, with no devastating effects on communities in resource-rich countries. 

Diamonds have a long history. Since their discovery in around the 9th century BC, till the mid eighteenth century, they were found only in alluvial deposits in southern India, the most famous being the Golconda mines of Hyderabad, which produced a steady stream of some of the world’s most famous diamonds. After 1870 diamonds started being mined in Australia, South Africa, the Congo, and Russia, among other countries. 

In the Congo, and countries like Sierra Leone, diamond mining has become dangerous, and controversial, as the social and environmental impact is huge. Mining destroys the vegetation leaving gaping pits, the erosion then runs into rivers and the water supply. The mining companies rarely bother to reforest or cover the mine back, and the local communities remain in a cycle of poverty because of their dangerous occupation. Revolutionary, armed groups have taken over the mining in these areas and major diamond trading organizations continue to do business with these groups. Diamonds from this trade are called blood diamonds, or conflict diamonds. Sierra Leone is a country destroyed from the diamond-fueled civil war, and ruthless diamond mining. 

Diaz Fine Jewelry, based in Hong Kong, had a desire to create an ecologically and ethically correct jewelry brand. Salina Khan Fuchigami, who co-founded the company with her husband Takashi, explains, “There's an undeniable link between the degradation of our global environment and consumer culture. The trouble is that these days, things are so nicely packaged, presented and displayed that we hardly ever question how the raw materials used to produce the goods are extracted and processed. We rarely think of how it all affects the environment and humankind. It's impossible to assess exactly how much devastation one single diamond could have caused before it was cut, polished, set and sold at a high-end retailer. It's hard to imagine what a diamond mine looks like by looking at the "stunning sparklers" that are neatly displayed in shop windows. Somewhere along the way it became irrelevant to question the true cost of the stones.”

Diaz Fine Jewelry creates cubic zirconia diamonds, which are made in a lab, not a mine. They also provide customers with an info-leaflet, and donate proceeds from sales to grassroots organizations that run mine-reclamation projects promoting organic farming and biodiversity in mining towns in Sierra Leone. The pieces of jewelry are beautifully designed, mounted on sterling silver, and look exactly like the real thing. 

As they say on their site, ‘the stones are unassociated with violence, war and geologic devastation.’ At DIAZ, they ‘believe in promoting socially responsible business practices that respect human beings and the environment.’ 

By Armeen Kapadia

Image: Khurram Bajwa

A long time back we came across the First Things First Manifesto, and though few designers know of it, it really makes sense. It was written on 29 November 1963 and published in 1964 by Ken Garland, a British designer. Over 400 graphic designers and artists supported it, as a movement against extreme consumerism, which was becoming the norm. In 1999 the manifesto was updated, and reborn as The First Things First 2000 manifesto. 
 
In the introduction to the 1964 manifesto, Rick Poynor explains, “The critical distinction drawn by the manifesto was between design as communication (giving people necessary information) and design as persuasion (trying to get them to buy things). In the signatories' view, a disproportionate amount of designers' talents and effort was being expended on advertising trivial items, from fizzy water to slimming diets, while more "useful and lasting" tasks took second place: street signs, books and periodicals, catalogues, instruction manuals, educational aids, and so on.”

Do read the forward, and also the World Economic Forum’s set of guidelines for design, which discusses the greatest opportunities and challenges for design. 

First Things First 1964
A manifesto

We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, photographers and students who have been brought up in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable means of using our talents. We have been bombarded with publications devoted to this belief, applauding the work of those who have flogged their skill and imagination to sell such things as: cat food, stomach powders, detergent, hair restorer, striped toothpaste, aftershave lotion, beforeshave lotion, slimming diets, fattening diets, deodorants, fizzy water, cigarettes, roll-ons, pull-ons and slip-ons.

By far the greatest effort of those working in the advertising industry are wasted on these trivial purposes, which contribute little or nothing to our national prosperity.

In common with an increasing numer of the general public, we have reached a saturation point at which the high pitched scream of consumer selling is no more than sheer noise. We think that there are other things more worth using our skill and experience on. There are signs for streets and buildings, books and periodicals, catalogues, instructional manuals, industrial photography, educational aids, films, television features, scientific and industrial publications and all the other media through which we promote our trade, our education, our culture and our greater awareness of the world.

We do not advocate the abolition of high pressure consumer advertising: this is not feasible. Nor do we want to take any of the fun out of life. But we are proposing a reversal of priorities in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication. We hope that our society will tire of gimmick merchants, status salesmen and hidden persuaders, and that the prior call on our skills will be for worthwhile purposes. With this in mind we propose to share our experience and opinions, and to make them available to colleagues, students and others who may be interested.

Manifesto 2000

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it. Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession's time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at 
best. 

Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse. There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. 


Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help. 

We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication - a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.
In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. 


Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.

magno-design.com

Products are extensions of the human body in some way, and not just inanimate objects to use and throw without a thought. A product that lives this philosophy better than any other is the Magno, a beautiful handcrafted wooden radio born in Indonesia.

Magno is the brainchild of product designer Singgih S. Kartono. He was concerned about the slowing down and deterioration of his hometown — Kandangan's village life, and after graduating set up his own business in the village. Agriculture, the backbone of the village, had been badly hit, forcing people to take up other professions or migrate to cities. Kartono felt that craft is an alternative activity that can help improve village economy and sustain the community. As explained on the site, “These characteristics [of craft] are that it is labor intensive, requires low technology and investment and abundance of local material input.”

Kartono also talks about the beautiful quality of wood as a material, “I consider wood as a balance material. In wood I can find strength, but yet weakness, advantages but also limits, and roughness as well as softness. Compare to synthetic material, I can feel that wood is a material with soul inside. Wood is a kind of material that its beauty comes from its history. How it grows is amazing process, it recorded to be age lines. It record good & bad time. The beautiful texture and grain actually a story of its life. Wood is a kind of perfect material, perfect cause of its imperfectness. Its characters teach us about  life, balance, limits.”

Kartono believes in the New Craft Method, “New Craft is a manufacturing process that uses traditional craftsmanship as its main means of production and uses modern management techniques in organizing its activities. The basic system of the New Craft is to ensure that every step of the production process contains standard procedures of manufacture, quality standards as well as output and material usage standards.” The New Craft ideology is almost the opposite of mass production and assembly line, as importance is given to each piece, and each worker. “In craft, the most important factor is the human resources behind the craft activities. It uses human skills as its main production resources - it is important to have correctly managed worker attitudes towards crafts.” In this way craft can become the alternative, sustainable source of income.

He designs to minimize the features on the products, and uses dark and light wood to create a warm contrast. The products require maintenance, which Kartono feels, “give a chance to its owner to feel the wood and also to care for the wood, as the care of its owner is the only real protection of the products.” He doesn’t believe in maintenance-free products. We have an obligation to look after the products we have.

Besides three varieties of wooden radios here, here, and here, Magno also has stationery, toys, and some small functional items. The radios can be connected to ipods, and are made only of wood, and in some cases fabric.
 
With his concern for the environment, Kartano ensures that every tree used is re-planted as he feels morally responsible for the environment. He also believes that we share a special relationship with products we use, “Products are living beings that send us messages and spiritual meanings in a passive way. Our society has begun to loose these meanings and products are becoming our robot servants. I strongly believe that the relationship between a user and a product is not merely a relationship between a subject and an object. It is a relationship where a product is an integral part of our life.”

He believes that the imperfect-ness of products is what makes them more human, and sustainable. "Design for us is more than just creating a well designed product that is produced and consumed in colossal amount. Design must be a way to solve and minimize problems."

By Armeen Kapadia

The role of designers is constantly changing, and this is clearly visible in the new courses developed by institutes across the world. The lines between D schools and B schools are blurring to create a new breed of design-managers, or management-designers. One such place is the D.School at Stanford.

Started by none other than David Kelly, also the founder of the design firm IDEO, the Stanford D School believes that great innovators and leaders need to be great design thinkers. Known as the Hasso Plattner School of Design, the focus is on radical collaboration, and a multi-discipinary approach. Design thinking is the glue that binds people of different disciplines together. Worldwide, B-schools are slowly turning towards D-schools to better their own way of working. Today, just management is not enough, and B-schools realize the value of design thinking, a systems level approach, and the difference it can make in problem solving. Innovation has become critical to management as corporations are increasingly striving for increased revenue. Hardcore administration is not enough anymore, as creative leadership is increasingly needed in a globalized world that is facing some level of crisis in economics, environment, and sustenance.

The Stanford D-school is not the first of its kind. There have been other such programmes in different places around the world, such as the one at MIT, and the program at Parsons. There is also Design London, a collaboration between Imperial College Business School and the Royal College of Art. All these schools have a strong focus on research, collaboration, entrepreneurship, incubating new ideas, and the inter-disciplinary nature of design.

This move to mix management and design is not welcome by everyone though, as many designers feel they would not like managers ‘telling them what to do’, or ‘interfering’ in the design process. Management might help designers better articulate their decisions and strategies, how to manage teams, encourage designers to research thoroughly, and help designers to deal with facts and figures in a better way. A lot of designers do have these skills, but they are not honed in a traditional design school, and often graduates fresh out of design school struggle to pick up these skills in their first few years of industry experience.

Design is much more than just making things beautiful, and design education needs to cater to the new roles that design is playing in an increasing number of sectors. Design is not exactly art, its not exactly science, and not exactly management, but somewhere involves all three and much more. There are always ongoing debates on whether design and management should merge, whether design is art, and so on.

Previously, the business world was using design, now design is the business.

By Armeen Kapadia

Two Stanford graduates, Sam Goldman and Ned Tozun, have a mission to eradicate kerosene lamps in the world. To accomplish this mission, they have started D.light Design. They could have taken a 'not-for-profit' approach, but they didn't, for a reason. In an article in the New York Times, they justify their approach, “We could have done it as a nonprofit over a hundred years, but if we wanted to do it in five or 10 years, then we believed it needed to be fueled by profit,” he said. “That’s the way to grow.”

1 in 4 people do not have electricity and live in the dark. Many families in India are dependent on kerosene lamps. Nearly one third of a family's monthly income in rural India is spent on procuring kerosene. Apart from its cost, kerosene lamps cannot work in wind or rain. Houses with kerosene lamps are also prone to fire hazards. The solar powered portable lamps designed by D.light Design are safe, affordable and offer bright light by use of LED.

Studies suggest that one kerosene lamp emits one ton of CO2 over its lifetime of five years. On the other hand, D.light lamps initiates healthy environment, better study environment, income savings and safety. Families using these lamps have become more effective since they can work at night as well. Chodhei Birsingh, one of the users, says, "For work, I use it while milking and foddering the buffaloes early in the morning. I also use the light regularly at night to go into the fields to switch on the water pump for irrigation."

The Nova light costs between $15 and $30. Its solar or AC-chargeable battery is built to last two years. If charged all day in the sun, the solar panel is supposed to provide up to eight hours of light. The Comet desk lamp, which costs between $8 and $15, is the world's most affordable solar light.

D.light, in collaboration with Beyond Solar and a local NGO, has made a village in India 100% solar powered. This project 'Shine a light' is going to improve the livelihood of tribal villagers in Orissa, an eastern Indian state.

Golman and Tozun had conceptualized the idea of such solar lamps in one of the semesters at Stanford that was entirely dedicated to creating solutions for extreme affordability. This is a prime example of how an idea can be transformed from the classroom to the real world.

By Armeen Kapadia and Sanjay Basavaraju