Watch the following videos and reflect on each video. Answer the question: how do you find these three talks assisting in understanding the use of 3D design?
– Ross Lovegrove – Industrial designer
– Paola Antonelli – Design curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art
– Alice Rawsthorn – Design critic
Reflections:
Ross Lovegrove:
As pretentiously as any successful designer should, Ross Lovegrove speaks about his aims to steer elite design in the direction of biodesign. However, I feel that Lovegrove’s outlook is decidedly closed-minded. He even rejects Eames’ chairs in favor of a homogenized “natural” aesthetic. In this talk, Lovegrove does not seem to display an understanding of the value of ccontrasting design processes and outcomes. Whereas biodesign may often offer the most efficient design solutions, designers create what people want. Not everyone – especially the trypophobic among us – can admire a chair with organic holes. This is evidenced by his pitch to Sony, which rejected his ideas. Lovegrove’s design solutions are efficient and intriguing, but they have their place. I do not agree that his principles must encompass the entirety of design’s future.
Paola Antonelli:
Paola Antonelli speaks of the diversity and variety she sees as a design curator at the Museum of Modern Art. Antonelli holds a unique stance as a curator of design within the sphere of high art. She describes most of her visitors coming for the artworks – the Picassos and Matisses – but staying for her shows. This stance is a valuable one in the both the art and design worlds. Though I may be in the minority of this (as the critical comments demonstrate), I believe that no harm can come from crosspollination and that artists, designers, and enthusiasts of both realms can benefit from one another. Antonelli understands the value of function in art and form in design. Her eclectic and broad definition encourages versatility, innovation, and enthusiasm in these increasingly interconnected fields.
Alice Rawsthorn:
Alice Rawsthorn speaks about the history of designers that are not traditionally considered designers. She acknowledges the value of “rebels and renegades” in design history, such as China’s first emperor, Blackbeard, and Florence Nightingale. What Rawsthorn adds to the design discourse is an appreciation for those that often are not labeled as designers and how these people have contributed to the field. My question is whether there is value in labeling people as designers. Does the label itself have intrinsic value? For the labeled, I think not – Ying Zheng still united China, Blackbeard still ruled the seas, and Nightingale still revolutionized healthcare, regardless of their labels. However, for aspiring designers, the true rebels and renegades trying to make it, I think it does. Rawsthorn allows the label of “designer” to expand in a way that encompasses, adopts, and unites a variety of identities, such that designers of all sorts feel they can contribute to the field.
