Some thoughts on ’22

Happy New Year everyone.

I’ve been incredibly slack in publishing any new articles this past year. Some of it is down to being too busy with work, some of it is finally being allowed to venture forth into the real world and experience stuff again (which we have done in spades as a family) and some of it is down to a bit of lethargy and ‘not feeling it’.

Strangely enough, there have been lots of topics that have either got my goat or fueled my fire, but I’ve never actually found the time to sit down and write anything vaguely coherent. I’ve started a few and found myself pulled under by my own argumentative seaweed, so gave up.

However, as the New Year crawls into our professional lives, and I see countless ‘faux-inspirational-twaddle’ being spouted on LinkedIn, I thought I’d simply gather the things I’ve been thinking about the most over the past year (but mainly the last few months as my powers of recall are not that great) and set them down as a disordered list of sorts.

Some of it is design related. Some of it is me related. Some of it is just stuff I’ve noticed.

As always, in no particular order of importance. Simply the order in which it fell out of my head.

1. Blandification.

I’ve thrown out a few critical posts on this topic over the past year as it’s something I’ve come to get somewhat bored of. The endless predictability of product aesthetic – typically products from the consumer tech sector. Elementary forms, predictable finishes, almost universally common colour palettes. TV’s, voice assistants, smartphones, computer peripherals…the list goes on.

Now I’m not averse to these products per se. They speak to the minimalist designer troll in me. In fact, designers have been relentlessly trying to get these sorts of products through client boardroom approvals for donkey’s years, and in a way it’s nice that they have finally broken through, but it’s the prevalence and ubiquity of this bland aesthetic that I grow tired of. For sure these have a place, but alongside other embodiments of taste and direction. There are plenty of arguments as to why this is happening…be it designers in the C-Suite or the universal use of the Pinterest algorithm as a design-input to most projects. Who knows.

It says something about how similar everything is, when the entire tech universe loses its shizzle over a brand launching a set of earbuds and a subsequent smartphone whose primary USP is transparency. Jeez…go back the 80’s…you’d have a coronary!

2. Industry polarity.

This is a tricky one to explain.

My observations of the product/industrial design industry seem to suggest that the design agency landscape is becoming polarised. On the one hand, there are the larger agencies who are becoming ever more ‘turnkey’ in their offer. Greater internal expertise in technology, human factors, coding and analytical engineering, building on the already developed offers of design, innovation (however you may define it), strategy (another one for the woolly terminology handbook), insight, mechanical engineering and modelmaking. These businesses need big fish to feed. Large relationships. Corporate rosters. They are also typically groomed (or grown) to become acquired ‘centres of excellence’ for corporate heavyweights wishing to embed ‘innovation’ within. It makes sense I guess…you can only feed on big fish for so long until you need to be a big fish yourself.

Then there appears to be a growing number of ‘boutique’ agencies, and I call them boutique not because they are exclusive, but because they appear to be selective and outwardly vocal in their principles and mantra. I have no argument with this as a model, but I do find that much of the work that emerges is relatively lightweight and predominantly aesthetic in focus.

Again, each to their own and I am not suggesting they shouldn’t do this. My concern is with the tendency for the design press to elevate these shallower projects to a point where they appear to be the benchmark – or at least a flavour – for the industry. If you were to skim that design press you would be forgiven for thinking that many designers are tackling peripheral and arguably unnecessary projects, based on the column inches and relative priority afforded to them. The bigger agencies can’t really talk about the big project as they are typically shrouded in ‘squeakily tight’ confidentiality.

There is an imbalance in reporting which is resulting in a feeling of polarity and a possible undermining of much of the rigorous, diligent, and often unglamorous work that industrial designers do in many sectors. Stuff that we take for granted but has had thousands of hours poured into each and every touchpoint to ensure it just works. The more we talk about the ‘vanity’ eye-candy projects, the more we devalue our industry.

Again, this is a tip of one iceberg. There is so much more to discuss.

3. Be more girl.

I guess this comes in no small part from my immediate family unit as father to two daughters, both older teenagers now. Whilst I’ve always been aware of it and incredibly mindful of it, the extent to which girls have to fight that little bit harder and develop a wider, more worldly set of skills still amazes me.

It’s hard to put my finger on it. It’s not the oft cited Caroline CP content about stuff not being designed for women (although I support the calling out of conscious and unconscious bias etc.) or the overt sexism in society (which is plain wrong), but the softer, quieter development of essential skills that enables them to navigate their lives. I am often in awe of the way my daughters just deal with stuff and take it in their stride, as have countless girls and women before them.

Now I’m not suggesting that boys have it easy. There are a whole host of prejudices and truckloads of toxic masculinity that causes all manner of anxieties and life hurdles for young boys and men to deal with, but girls seem to sail the waters of life a little more fluidly and steer a more knowing course whilst coping with the same stuff, if not moreso. Like Ginger once said…”I did everything Fred did, only backwards and in high heels.”

There’s so much more I could write about this, so I’ll stop in the interest of brevity.

4. Teaching of design (DT) at school.

Another topic I started writing an article on, but got lost in my own rhetoric.

I’ve been supporting a school with their DT teaching for the last 2 years (predominantly A-Level but some occasional support of GCSE and other years) and whilst I’ve known the curriculum for years (my wife is a DT teacher), it never really struck me how outdated it was until I had to teach it myself. Now, I’m lucky in that I don’t have to teach the theory… I just get to help the students with their NEA (major projects) and their preparations for University applications and wider softer skills, but even that level of interaction has left me somewhat perplexed.

I guess I can also balance and compare this teaching with the last few years’ support I’ve given to University undergrads and recent grads from numerous creative University design courses. When you layer it, you come to realise that the amount of effort and subsequent ‘awarded marks’ that goes to stuff that is utterly pointless and counterproductive to the development of the skills that those students actually require is astounding.

Students – despite significant support and guidance – are drowning in attempts to develop a major project that provides them with nothing but obstacle after obstacle with no significant creative ‘skills gain’. A project that is essentially of their own choosing (again…with guidance) which in itself is ridiculous.

As designers we are trained to satisfy the brief. Current design education at school and (certain) University level is – by and large – failing to meet that brief. It is peddling decades old approaches whilst ‘tacking’ on a 3D printer here and a laser cutter there in an attempt to bring in up to the modern stage. Utter poppycock.

If you started from scratch, and looked at what industry requires of modern creative thinkers and design practitioners (of which I’d like to say I have some experience), the current system of teaching is abysmal. Unless you are a classic T-Shaped all-rounder who wants to pursue a specific career path in industrial design (and even then you could argue that there are much better ways to do this), the current DT A-Level curriculum is archaic.

And I don’t blame the teachers. They are simply teaching what the exam boards tell them to and what the DT organisations promote.

As you can probably tell…there’s much more where this came from.

5. Health.

As I get older, so health becomes an ever present consideration. Not that I’m old, but with the advancing of years comes the reduction in functionality of certain parts of your body. Don’t worry, I won’t be specific. I’ll leave that to your imagination. Let’s just say that it’s often stuff that you take for granted.

And by health I mean both versions. Physical and mental. I’ve spoken a lot about the need for me to take some time out for my own mental health and I’m very aware of the fragility of that equation as habits kick back in and life attempts to right itself to a pattern programmed early on. The balance between earning money to feel secure and working too hard that you don’t see your family. Wanting to appear or be ‘successful’ but being mindful of the toxicity of professional showboating at every turn. Being seen to be responsive to clients but knowing that a long walk is the best thing for you right now.

This awareness of health is linked heavily to happiness. There’s nothing more sobering about being ill. It really makes you appreciate when you were healthy. And that sobriety is a constant reminder when I see my Dad every week. I won’t spend time describing his situation here (here’s some background for you) but his circumstances and the abruptness with which his life (and mind) changed has made me realise that you can’t simply wait until ‘afterwards’ (whatever afterwards is to you…be it a career or money or fame) to decide to correct that equation. Deal with it now.

Health doesn’t adhere to your diary. Shit things happen to good people at times that you least expect it.

6. Neediness when needed.

This is simply a beef of mine, but one that has cause to surface recently.

The tendency for people to get it touch when they want something from you or you are somehow useful to their immediate selfish cause. Now, I’m not talking about the broader tendency for people to fall out of touch and then ask a favour every now and again. I get that. In fact, I have the badge. I’ll happily do anything for anyone who needs help, introductions or advice and I can be of some use.

It’s more the people who when contacted at other times i.e. when they don’t need you – give you absolutely zero feedback or acknowledgement as you are of no use to their immediate future. People with big titles in ‘unicorn’ companies who start to believe their own hype. People who believe they are sought after. Indispensable. Unfortunately, as someone who has run a small (aka unknown) design business over the years, you find yourself dealing with quite a few people like this.

The very same people, who – when faced with redundancy or some level of uncertainty – ping off a message with levels of insincerity Trump would be proud of to the very same person they ‘aired’ countless times before, and ask if you’d like to ‘get together for a coffee’ or ‘let’s do lunch’ as ‘I’d like to pick your brains…’ or somesuch guff. They want to harvest you like a zombie and cast your bodily husk to the gulls.

Strangely enough, they are also the kinds of people that expect you to come to them. When I occasionally reply saying I’d be happy to meet but I live in the countryside, they default to ‘airing’ again.

7. Building my own house.

This is something that’s always ferreting around in my brain at some level. The fundamental need to design and build my own home.

I am fascinated by the way humans live and how – most often – our homes are typically not designed to suit the way we want to live, so we tend to adapt to the building we inhabit. I’d love to start from base principles and design a home that is built around the way my family wish to live and to some extent, how we will evolve as each generation ages and develops.

I’m not sure I’d get the same satisfaction from renovation or adaptation either. I’m fascinated to see how a building might look if designed to suit us and where it is located. For sure, I’m also somewhat fascinated by the essential functionality of a building…things like water, gas, electrical services and how these can be designed to be better (and more sustainably) accessed, maintained and updated. It still baffles me that everything that can go wrong in a building is buried underneath everything that is invariably difficult to undo. We hide electrics behind plastered walls, water pipes under tiled floors and sewerage pipes under beautifully manicured lawns. As someone who has wrestled with a 300 year old cottage located along a lane that most vehicles can’t access and a septic tank that refuses to behave, I have a hankering to design something that doesn’t fill me with dread when there is a heavy rain shower or a frost or a particularly exuberant teenager with a toilet roll habit.

Having watched enough episodes of Kevin McCloud relishing hearing couples tell him how much they’ve gone over budget, I’m aware that doing this is no small undertaking, and even finding the right plot of land is an adventure (not a good one) in itself…let alone affording it. In fact, a friend who is in the commercial property business has attempted to actively dissuade me from it all. However, it still remains one of the biggest unchecked boxes on my bucket list and I’ve no idea if I’ll ever get the opportunity to do it…but not through lack of wanting.

I would genuinely be interested in hearing from people who have done this or know how to go about it. It fascinates me and I’m almost too scared to start considering it a possibility, so if there was ever cause to nudge…

8. AI.

No article about 2022 would be complete without a mention of AI.

Every third LinkedIn post seems to be about ChatGPT, Lensa, Dall-E or Midjourney. It’s exciting and mesmerising as it eludes to futures of automated creativity, where we simply lie back, utter some key words and the rest is spat out at incredibly speed. Alphabets made up entirely of frog’s intestines. Scuba diving babies. Dystopian MacDonalds. What my LinkedIn profile picture might look like as a resident of Middle Earth. All essential questions answered!

I jest but I think it’s really interesting. In the way that 3D CAD was interesting in the 90’s or Rendering was interesting in the early noughties or 3D Printing was interesting in the mid-noughties, or AR was interesting a decade ago. They all prompted some form of doom-mongering. The demise of thought. The demise of photography. The demise of manufacturing. The demise of reality. Each and every one has found its place (or is still finding its place) amongst the stuff we already do and the tools we use, and AI will no doubt equally find its place. I can imagine it will be brilliant at certain points and with the right ‘driver’. Much like 3D CAD is brilliant if the designer or engineer using it is also brilliant and can harness its capability effectively and efficiently. Lord knows, for every 1 decent CAD model out in the wild, there are 1000 shonky ones.

But similarly, there are times when you just need words or you just need a pencil and paper to get your best thoughts in order, and it is rare that the best ideas come directly from the use of a ‘tool’. The best stuff comes from thought or a scribble or a conversation. How you deploy or translate or implement that thought is up to you and the tools at your disposal, and the better the tools, the better the eventual outcome…but it will only ever be as good as the synaptic leap that gave birth to that thought, and as far as I can see, AI still relies on inputs to make it work.

I’ll be having a play for sure, and I have no doubt that the evolved versions of the current AI creative tools will form a part of my everyday toolkit in the months and years to come, and I look forward to that time.

As you can see, there’s no real thread to these points. It’s just stuff. Some of it is probably far too opinionated and other stuff is possibly too personal. Hey ho. It is what it is.

I’m intrigued to know what 2023 holds for me and my little family. It’s a year of simultaneous A-Levels and GCSEs (which is going to make for a horrid, hormonal metaphorical fist fight lasting several months), the first full year of FourBeards Limited, a year of transition as our eldest goes off to University and another year of me trying not to get annoyed by the dog!

Let’s see what happens.