What can design do

1. What’s your definition of design? How has it changed over time?

As a graphic designer, you are translating the story of the client you are working with, although it can be extremely exciting and challenging. You however come to a crossroads where you want to be in charge of your own narrative. We started WDCD where we could be in charge of our own content.

Started working in 1995 and over a period of time design has taken many shapes and forms. The design was originally a very functional act of adding value to people’s lives. And then it started to become its own objective. Became associated with luxury, trivial stuff, or with something exclusive. How can you use design as a problem-solving tool for the big issues that exist today — poverty, climate change, circularity, etc. that we need to repair maybe we as designers have helped create waste, etc. — they have had a big hand in. But now we can come back from it. They exist next to each other.

2. What according to you is a “short term” and “long term” view on using Design, for profitability? What according to you design can really do and what are we doing?

Everything that gets you satisfaction in the short term, will come back to haunt you with problems in the long term. Problems of wasting and fast turnover of products will all have long-term consequences. Short-term decisions are not good for the long term; take the example of a car. What good has it done for us in the long term? The fast way is also always the cheap way.

Profitability versus the long-term view? This is where the new designer comes in. Impossible to move forward w/o depriving people who don’t have access to the lifestyle that people in the first world have. Design better things.

3. What is the “What can design do” competition about? What are the fundamental

aspects of circular design for this year’s theme?

We recently launched MiC – 3 fundamental aspects;

• Design things that will last longer and look at the costs of manufacturing a product and use it for the amount of time that it is designed for. For eg; a mobile phone you should use it for 250 years. It is not sustainable because we are only taking and creating a huge amount of waste. Need to design things that will have a long life span. Products have to be built stronger, maybe add to it or add repair-ability to it, and also think about where the business model is in all of that. People were in sync with nature. Processes to produce, grow and think about simpler solutions to our problems today.
• Only use what exists – reuse, repair, and recycle things with a regenerative aspect to things.

4. What made you start, “What Design Can Do”? Any moment, project, milestone? Which do you think of as a trigger/ starting point?

Started out in 2011 by organizing events, festivals, and design conferences for designers in Amsterdam and bringing together designers from all over the world to talk about what design can do. How designers can use their skills and knowledge to work towards big societal goals, such as climate action, gender equality, etc. Then we went to Brazil, Mexico, etc. with these conferences. In 2015 there was a huge refugee crisis and we thought we could come up with fresh ideas to solve the refugee issue. How can we improve the lives of the people who have made the whole journey and have reached western shores? Not really a question we put to designers. But the response we got was impressive. Submit their ideas, selecting the right ideas and broadcast these ideas to the world.

Then we set up the challenge in partnership with the IKEA foundation on climate change. Worldwide mobilization to come up with ideas and have a real impact on the issues at hand. Clean energy, waste and now circularity are the broader topics we have worked on.

6. Design is a continuum, a process where we peel layers by shipping. What framework do you use to evaluate that proposed ideas are actionable? In your research docs, you mentioned “The Five Circular Ways of Living”. Can you tell us more about it?

Up to the designer where they stop — design is used in everything today. Not just for designers but also for the consumer to think about circularity in a responsible way. Important to think about for eg: where do my raw materials come from? We are currently designing stuff for the landfill. Most of the things that have to be changed are considered left-wing. We as designers can’t be naive that we can do this alone — we work with clients, manufacturers, consumer markets, policy makers, etc. so design isn’t going to save the world by itself. But we need to work together. Designers are everywhere; so why don’t we start with designers to bring about this change? It would be good to include them in the conversation in the early stages.

7. I had given a flash talk a long time ago called “Designed by Default”. In short, it was about… “things are designed by default in nature”. We as the human species, rewire stuff for some incentives which more often than not land up in a few tradeoffs. What are your thoughts on that? How do you look at the synthesis after this tradeoff?

Where does the responsibility of the designer ends? By designing something that can make someone’s life easier, people are losing the ability to make a meal for themselves. What are we throwing away? People don’t make their clothes anymore. It is not just the responsibility of the designer but also the people who want to have an easier, faster life — to perhaps consume more products.

8. Can you conclude by sharing any case study/ winner or 2, which you loved the most in the last 5 years?

Africa, Kenya — NYUNGU AFRIKA

Sanitary products. Female entrepreneurs who came up with the products that are biodegradable and made from organic waste.

Dutch company, Living Coffin

Made from fungi; A FULLY BIODEGRADABLE CASKET THAT TURNS INTO COMPOST WITHIN 45 DAYS.

Momentum for change.