Our Lives Today Are All About Change & Transformation

“How are our lives different today?
Our lives today are all about change and transformation.
We are now at our homes typing on our computers.
We have WiFi.
We are on our cell phones.
Work, life- it’s all sort of coming into one place.

That means that the products we use
Have to have this ability
To adopt, to change, to transform,
To align with our emotions we are in at that particular point.”

Yves Béhar, May 7, 2007

So we need to change and transform these days, and the products we use need to be able to do it too. What creates the change- life circumstances, ourselves, or the products themselves? It seems all of the above, actually.

The possibility of a change imposed or encouraged by the products expresses the importance of design and the tremendous responsibility of the designer. The design is not just about form, texture, cover, etc, it is about seeing the future, and showing & expressing it in the design. It is a process involving both the right and the left-brain modes.

Comments?

Background: Earlier this week, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the New Yorker Conference: “2012: Stories From the Near Future”. One of the speakers was Yves Béhar, an industrial designer and founder of the Fuse Project. He talked about various projects including the One Laptop Per Child project and on the role of design.
For more information, see the video at Design: 2012.
I will relate to other points raised at the New Yorker Conference in some of my next blog entries.