- Modern Design Development Trends Zhu Guoqin/ Wen
Today, modern designs supported by markets and technologies are again impacted by the development of markets and technologies. The "classic" concept and status of design are being challenged unprecedentedly. The original system and concepts have been shaken from the basic level.
In the past, designers often liked to describe themselves as "creators of a new lifestyle." Designers have once been exposed to a sacred aura. Many people (including many designers themselves) regard the designer as the determiner of the current and future lifestyle of the people—the architects determine the living space and environment of the people; the product designers and furniture designers stipulate the people The style of life and production items; Graphic designers provide a variety of advertising and packaging filled with people's visual space. Designers play a leading role in the cycle of design-production-circulation-consumption. The pen glows with mystery - it is like a sword held by the gods of the heavens, dominating and defining everything that is forming!
However, the reality is that the public does not accept the designer's thoughts. In today's real life, there are too many design works that are not recognized by consumers. A large number of unsold goods are proofs. For example: In 1997, China had a product backlog of 1.4 trillion yuan, which was far higher than China’s national income that year. Although there are various factors such as management and management, the design is one of the most direct reasons to be separated from the market and the needs of consumers.
In fact, if you look closely and analyze it, you can see that the existing design—production and distribution methods are so extravagant that when the designer’s works are finally accepted by consumers, there is always too much “wasteâ€. Concomitantly, there are always a large number of unsatisfactory products that are not accepted by the market. In reality, there is always a certain proportion of products that cannot be sold out for every 100 products. People often talk about how the sales rate is, but even if it is 97%, and 3% of the products are wasted, this number will be an astronomical figure for the entire country – not to mention the actual sales rate is much lower The oral data, otherwise how would there be 1.4 trillion yuan one to say!?
On the one hand, the market is a bridge linking design and consumption. On the other hand, it becomes a trap. It consumes too much social wealth! If waste is a crime, then designers who cause huge waste can commit crimes. What about?
Therefore, people have to ask: Is there any possibility of further development and improvement of existing design concepts and designs—production methods? In reality, is there a potentially wasteful design-production-waste approach?
Looking ahead, if we think about this issue from the historical development of the relationship between design and consumption, production, and circulation, we may be inspired.
A structural defect - the unidirectional process from design to consumption
The link between design and consumption is achieved through the exchange of commodities under market conditions. This exchange, in addition to the exchange of goods, also implies the exchange of labor value and the exchange of information between designers and consumers. In order to achieve the full value of the design (which fully meets the needs of consumers), the most important thing is the exchange of information between designers and consumers.
The boundaries between design, production, circulation and consumption of the handicraft production methods before the industrial era did not seem to be clear. In the past, when craftsmen who walked between towns and villages were designing and making a “productâ€â€”a wooden bed and a wooden barrel, the designers were in constant contact with consumers (customers)—consumers constantly “Visiting†the carpenter's verbally or stylized design styles, constantly request the carpenter to revise the various hypothetical plans, and finally, the “product†made by the carpenter and the consumer is the product of the designer, the producer, and the consumer. , And in the aesthetic, functional and other aspects of consumer personality and personal needs. From here it can be found that: (1) the designer is only the provider and implementer of the plan; (2) the consumer often participates in and dominates the entire process of design and production; (3) the process of designing, producing, and consuming this product They are not separated, they are integrated, and they conduct two-way exchanges (market circulation does not have an important influence and role here); (4) The important thing is that the value of design has been fundamentally achieved - The design satisfies the needs of consumers who exist in an individual sense! Therefore, it is almost impossible to waste here.
However, let us look at how today's designers work - as a major social division of labor based on the mode of operation of modern large-scale industries and large market economies, which has brought about tremendous increase in productivity, and has also led to design, production and consumption. The separation of the direct links between people, the way the market connects designers and consumers is very "rigid" - through the exchange of goods and recognition to achieve information exchange between designers and consumers. Designers sit in the office to design a "lifestyle" for a consumer (or a group of people) he has never met. The table is a survey report, a design sketch, everything is good. Elephants are in accordance with procedures and logic. However, in the almost endless division of labor, there is too much possibility of escaping from consumer demand - if the material for market research is wrong or out of date, any rush in the design process, the executive's opinion on the subjectivity of the design, Vulgar insights, etc., everything may make the design from the needs of consumers!
Modern design - The production process is like a huge train consisting of hundreds or thousands of parts. Any unqualified part of a small part of a train can cause the entire train to overturn, and modern design, production, circulation and The process of consumption is much more complicated than a train. It involves not only technology, but also social awareness, culture, and other aspects.
Modern big industry uses circulation (market) as the point of connection design production and consumption. Designers' understanding of consumers is achieved through certain data collection and analysis: Consumer information is difficult to effectively feed back into design. Come up. Design - production - circulation: The process of consumption is mainly one-way (ie, from design to consumption), so its interruption is very easy.
It must be pointed out that in many existing enterprises, the goal of production is to maximize profits, so designing and producing this high-speed train, its goal is a general profit, and the process of achieving the goal But it is countless concretely differentiated consumer demands. This separation of design and production goals (profits and actual consumer demand) is fraught with danger! If we read Marx's "Das Kapital" about the wonderful words of capital in order to realize profits, we can understand why modern designers are. You make so many mistakes, and why these errors are inevitable and difficult to correct in a specific context.
When people mourn over the enormous benefits of modern industrial production methods, they often do not notice the price they pay for it. Separation of design, production and consumers as a division of labor increases productivity on the one hand, and on the other hand, the organizational relationship between production and circulation also threatens to divide and interrupt the design and production process at any time. This separation can actually be seen as a structural flaw in modern production methods. Although modern design has made great progress in the scientific methods and procedures, the reality is that this structural flaw has often caused catastrophic results for businesses and society. Numerous facts also illustrate this point.
Presumed "group"
Some people will argue here: Modern design has a complete set of market research methods and design procedures that can solve the problem of how to meet the needs of consumers.
Modernism is a response to the development of modern large-scale industry. It answers the questions raised by the modern large-scale industrial production methods at the beginning of development. Modernism critiques the traditional design methods of the past by stripping clean the "flavor" of this ornament that reflects the relationship between man and nature. Modernism has developed a design expression language that is based primarily on abstraction. The analysis and implementation of functions are the main topics of design. It has a systematic method of market research. However, in a specific environment, this method has some of the same "structural flaws" in its practical use.
The premise of modern industrial operation is large-scale and batch production. Therefore, the modern design of the target of product consumption, the “person†it serves, is only a concept of “groupâ€. The larger the scale of production, the larger the group's content; and the larger the group's extension, the more ambiguous its specific connotation is. In fact, early modernist designers are designing products that satisfy consumer needs. Functionality is the goal, but often more consideration is given to the general aspects of consumer physiology and economics (such as the use of ergonomics and value engineering, etc.), and their psychological and social attributes are often overlooked. But from the market or from a larger perspective, the latter is more important. Because people are concrete, it is their "combination of various social relations." The difference in people's psychological and social status reflects the individual's personality, as well as the "class" aspects of the locality of the nation. Without this, the consumer object becomes a "empty" and abstract object.
The direct result of indifference to the characteristics of consumers and their needs is the uniqueness of design style and language. Bauhaus-style monolithic architecture “considers†all kinds of human needs, but traditional architecture reflects people, history, and places. Things have been lost. The appearance of many modern cities in the world has been tiresome. People feel depressed when living in spaces and objects set by designers. Therefore, it is not surprising that the phenomena of "bump," "hippy," and "postmodernism" have emerged.
If we go further