The soul of design

29 Feb 2008

As the second day of Design Indaba 11 got into its stride yesterday, Thursday, 28 February, 2008, it became clear that the relationship between the way anything works and looks and the way it makes you feel is at the heart of all design thinking. In fact, design is impossible without both thinking.

In his book Designing Interactions, IDEO cofounder Bill Moggeridge explains how he first had the scales fall from his eyes, when, in 1980 –1981, his pride at having been part of the team that developed the first laptop computer gave way to the realisation that the user interface would no longer ever just be about form, but would require a deep understanding of the software that would in the future be required to give the user the necessary control over the device.

This dichotomy is well-demonstrated via the iPod – the physical interface delights via its simplicity, while in reality the content behind iTunes was seven years in development.

Stole the show

Japanese industrial designer Shunji Yamanaka stole the show yesterday with his experimental robot HallucII, making its debut for the first time out of Japan. With umpteen different intelligent functions for its seven jointed eight-wheeled legs, HallucII can pick things up, step over obstacles and even applaud, and it is apparently the vehicle for assessing what functions transport of the future might require – and he's jolly cute.

Talking about cute, Maxim Velcovsky from the Czech Republic is one of those designers whose flair reveals the delight in all form. Adding wit to vases by putting a flower in a hole in the side instead of in the top opening, renewing the tradition of craftsmanship of his region by recreating fast food vehicles and plastic cup shapes in the finest porcelain and glass, or developing a system of tableware that can be laid out like tiles on a table in a variety of formations, he plays with concepts born of the transition of his country from communism to commercialism and in the process ensures that laying the table has never been such fun.

Although the digital learning curve may be relentlessly steep, the Design Indaba is increasingly about demystifying design – it's really so simple – because we live in such a stressful post-modern world, we have an fundamental need for the antidotes. Nature is one of them – Japanese designer Toshyuki Kita showed lamps with shades of paper made in a river, alleviating the need to use additional water in a factory. Not only does the paper lantern emit a beautiful warm glow, Japanese craft is imbued with the spirit of the crafter, he says.

On the same page

Both US Indstrial design “guru” Tucker Viemeister from New York's Rockwell Group (www.rockwellgroup.com) and the British Goddess of interior design, Ilse Crawford (www.studioilse.com), are also both on the same page with regard to the fact that adding delight and comfort is the designer's mandate – as can be seen in their restaurants, bars, residential and commercial commissions.

Context was probably the word of the day at the Indaba – design can only be conceived in a context. For example, British design duo Nipe Doshi and Jonathan Levien have succeeded in imbuing contemporary Tefal cookware with the traditional shapes, motifs and colours related to the regions in Indian from where certain cooking techniques originate – ensuring that form follows the context of what the objects are used for – in the process adding value and meaning to what was once plain black Teflon.

Putting into context

Trying to put the day into context in the scheme of things was Paul D Miller aka DJ Spooky: that subliminal kid. From that metropolis of meaning that is New York, an Andy Warhol for the Obama age, Miller pushes technical visual and audial boundaries to create a new form of installation experience, contextualising hip hop, techno, soul and drum and base music and much contemporary American culture in the process.

Iin this pursuit he jols around the Venice Biennale, staged an event in the Acropolis in Athens and has just finished shooting an incredible high def movie in Antarctica, which will debut the the Sundance festival this year.

What did you do for your humans today?

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