In this modern age we all live and interact in a global community, because of our thirst for knowledge and desire to make lifestyle choices, our future is now in doubt. Unless we take an informed view of our world and work toward a sustainable future all of our lives will change. We have to consider the world around us and our effects upon it, we have a responsibility to our children to leave them with a sustainable future. The key to this sustainable future lies in the hands of the designer. Design merges science and technology with the arts and allows us to enhance our social, cultural, industrial and economic values. We continually adapt to change and reinvent ourselves through our approaches to design.
We have a duty to evolve from a technology driven approach to life, to a more human centred and a less materialistic approach. The future of our world is more important than the financial models of capitalist culture that we have adopted. Human centred design that puts cultural traditions and our need to survive and interact first will be an essential approach for designers.
Design and design education must change to reflect this new global world we live in. The designer has a responsibility to consider the design process in a more informed and responsible way, to put ethics before profit and to consider sustainability before easy solutions. Designers must assume new roles and new challenges to develop solutions that can sustain our expectations of lifestyle and culture.
As part of this new role the designer must consider the tools he uses and how effectively to use them. Desktop computers have revolutionised design and allowed the adaption of new, more effective production processes. These processes do not always offer the designer the best option; we have become complacent in our approach to the use of tools and see the computer as our only tool. We must question our use of computers and consider a more informed use of tools and techniques based upon sustainable outcomes.
This blog hopes to highlight the changes we need to make to discover and suggest new design rationale’s to consider sustainability wherever it touches the design process and to explore alternative ways of creating the future we need and desire. To develop ecological, social and cultural benefits for all, to improve our quality of life and create an optimism about the future through design.
