I ADOPT CANONS OF ETHICS FOR MY DESIGN CRITICISM

I couldn't think of a better model for the ethical code of a design critic than the Canons of Ethics proposed for judges by the American Bar Association. I present them here in their original form and as I have modified them to suit the needs of design critics and their audience.


ORIGINAL FOR JUDGES

CANON 1
A judge shall uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary.

CANON 2
A judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the judge’s activities.
CANON 3
A judge shall perform the duties of judicial office impartially and diligently.
CANON 4
A judge shall so conduct the judge’s extra-judicial activities as to minimize the risk of conflict with judicial obligations.
CANON 5
A judge or judicial candidate shall refrain from inappropriate political activity.


Except for Canon 5, all of these can be adapted to the conduct of a design critic. As modified below, I hereby adopt them for my conduct in this blog. I add a new Canon 5 which I think is  relevant in criticism but not in judicial conduct. This also interacts with Canon 3. Unlike a judge, I think a design critic can "rule" on a subject with which he or she has a personal connection and may have some partiality so long as the nature of that connection is disclosed. A judge, on the other hand, in deciding between adversarial parties cannot have the same leeway.


MY CODE OF CRITICAL CONDUCT


CANON 1
A design critic shall uphold the integrity and independence of the critical profession.
CANON 2
A design critic shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the design critic’s activities.
CANON 3
A design critic shall perform the duties of design criticism impartially and diligently.
CANON 4
A design critic shall so conduct the design critic’s extra-critical activities as to minimize the risk of conflict with professional obligations.
CANON 5
A design critic shall disclose all connections the critic has to the subject under consideration.


Sworn to this 27th day of April, 2011.
Daniel Young

GLOBAL DESIGN VAULTS

I have been reading about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, a back-up storage facility for the seeds of the world. It is located on a remote Norwegian island about 810 miles from the North Pole.

It made me think something similar is needed for the world's most important design objects. For example, in the event of world-wide catastrophe, (nuclear, climatic, geological etc.) it would be good to have places where examples of the wheel were securely stored to save future societies the trouble of inventing it. 

The only problem, in the event of total social disorder, would be maintaining and communicating knowledge of the locations of the Design Vaults and the importance of their contents.


For a number of reasons, existing "design" collections such as the one in MOMA (New York's Museum of Modern Art) will not be good for the purpose I have in mind. First of all, large urban areas such as New York City are likely to be uninhabitable and perhaps inaccessible. Second, a collection such as MOMA's is much too voluminous and frivolous. For example, it has 413 tables, 564 chairs, 94 stools and 77 ashtrays. It seems to be oriented more towards preserving fashion and idiosyncratic design proliferation than towards preserving knowledge of making essential design objects. 

I suppose there is some small benefit in knowing that at some point humans began to use bent wood for chairs and later progressed to bent metal and then to totally malleable plastic and anything else they could form into the shape of a chair. But I, for one, would find the design history of wheels from their probable origin as potter's wheels through their use for transportation up to such extravagances as the Ferris wheel much more interesting. 

In any event, the focus of a really useful design vault would be to enable people to produce and use those designs most needed to conduct a healthy civilized life. It would be much more instructive than the design exhibits aimed at informing shoppers about fashionable "design" objects.

My choice for the location of a design repository would be something like Piz Gloria, the mountain-top restaurant at Murren, Switzerland. 

I would choose it for its height above sea level, geological stability and the likelihood the Swiss will be in good shape even when the rest of the world is in chaos.

IF GODS ARE DESIGNERS, WHAT ARE DESIGNERS?

The "design" argument for the existence of gods is probably the best one. It says, "Things in nature look as if they were designed so there must be a designer or designers out there."


Whether or not this is so, it gives the practice of design by humans an exalted status. Of all human activities, it is the most godlike. At the very least, designers ought to belong to the class of angels. They have the power to affect everything that goes on in the world. In a way they are omnipresent. 

But, alas, they are clearly not omnipotent. For the most part, designers seem to be servants of corporations. How did it happen that, instead of ruling the world, designers are servants?


I think it has something to do with the existence of money. Designers, being primarily concerned with how things should work (and look) do not give first priority to the accumulation of money. This leaves the economy in the hands of those who give primary importance to collecting money. They use money to establish immortal entities (known as "corporations") with the purpose of making more money. The money class and its immortal entities arrange for selected people to run the non-profitable activities of the society. That is called the "government." 

The immortal entities entice the designers to make things that will bring in the most money and thereby keep them going forever.


We can conclude from this that the best way for designers to take a more prominent role in the leadership of the world is for them to concentrate more on accumulating money, on creating their own immortal entities and on playing a more important role in government. 

A wonderful shortcut might be to have a designer elected as President of the United States or to have designers with law degrees take over the Supreme Court. Congressmen and Senators do not seem to have much of a function these days so it would probably be best for designers to stay away from those positions.

A DESIGNER GETS ON A DISH-WASHING SOAPBOX

As an advanced practitioner of dish-washing I occasionally have to buy a bottle of liquid dish-washing soap. My preference in the past was an emerald-green syrup manufactured by Colgate-Palmolive. I like it because the color allows me to see clearly the amount of soap I am applying to the sponge, thus avoiding soap waste, one of the common sins of amateur dish-washing.


Two days ago I didn't see any green liquid in stock. So I bought a blue container, thinking the blue came from the liquid inside. Alas, only the container was blue and the soap is nearly invisible when applied to my sponge. My normal paranoia made me think that perhaps manufacturers are eliminating dark-colored dish-washing liquids because they want to encourage wasteful use of the product. However, I have no proof of this ....... yet.


In any event, this unpleasant shock led me to explore the Colgate-Palmolive dish-washing liquid site. I found that they have mastered the art of multiplying products unnecessarily, one of the most characteristic tactics of modern production and design. I will limit this analysis to those dish-washing liquids marketed under the trademark of Palmolive for hand dish-washing.


There seem to be six distinct "functional" types; one, the "Original," two, "Antibacterial," three, "Aroma Sensations," four, "Dry Skin," five, "Oxy Plus," and six, "Pure+." It exhausts me to list the sub-categories within these. For example, Aroma Sensations are Lavender, Green Apple and Tropical Blossom. Oxy Plus has one "Power Degreaser," one "Odor Eliminator" and one with "Bleach Alternative." The funniest category is "Pure +." It boasts "You'll love it for everything it doesn't have.... no unnecessary chemicals... no heavy fragrances... non-irritating dyes." Delving further I found yet another variation, "Ultra Baby" which claims, believe it or not, to have "no unnecessary ingredients." Still further one comes across even more variations but I am too numbed to mention them.

The section in which they show the ingredients and their purpose is most interesting.  The cleaning agents are mostly the same and are outnumbered by the ingredients which play a supporting role in controlling thickness, stability and consistency.

I defy anyone to defend this wasteful proliferation of what should be a simple form of soap. The only defense I anticipate is that it gives consumers what they want. I say that a society which wants this sort of variety in its cleaning substances has lost touch with reality and is fussing , or should I say "washing," itself into historical oblivion.


From my point of view the designer of a soap product should be going in exactly the opposite direction. The most commendable product would be one which not only washes dishes but also washes the hands, the body and the hair. Omnisoap! And why not have it wash the laundry as well? Of course, such a product would represent a threat to the economy worse than communism and terrorism. It would undermine the very foundation of contemporary capitalism. For that reason it can only remain a treasonous fantasy.

DESIGNS WHICH SAY "SCREW YOU"

Wine, an ancient grape-derived intoxicating beverage has, in some cases, been transformed into one of the most overpriced products of our time. At some future date I hope to deal with how designers have been accomplices in the wonderful con in which the beverage accompanying a meal costs more than the food. 

At the moment my attention has been caught by tools for extracting the cork with which some wine bottles are closed. The New York Times has just lavished attention on a line of corkscrews which range in price from $220 to $410. I call the design and production of such objects indecent and an offense against the higher ideals of design. These ideals include designing a quality product which can be sold at the lowest possible price.


First, let the record reflect that cork is no longer the best way to close a wine bottle. The screw cap probably is better. All cork has in its favor is its "tradition," the opening "ceremony" it compels and the power of the cork-producing interests. So we have an outrageously expensive tool dedicated to an inferior and soon-to-be obsolete closure of an overpriced product. How foolishly decadent can you get?

Second, the objects in question have no meaningful functional superiority to those which cost one-tenth the price or less. There is, however, a sort of perverse logical consistency in using an obscenely overpriced tool to open an obscenely overpriced bottle of wine.


I propose an alternative bottle-opening ceremony which could use the simplest and least expensive sort of corkscrew - a screw set in a horizontal handle. The wine-opening ceremony with such a tool could be gussied up this way: The sommelier or host wheels in a small platform with a hole in its center. He or she raises the top of the platform and inserts the wine bottle so that its neck extends up through the hole. Then he or she inserts the screw of a corkscrew into the cork, climbs up on the platform, bends over or kneels and pulls up on the corkscrew to extract the cork.


But wait, I have unjustifiably assumed that the screw cap means the end of the wine-opening ceremony. Maybe I have not reckoned with the ingenuity of designers working for the wine establishment. Perhaps it will be discovered that simply twisting off the cap with one's fingers traumatizes the wine. I begin to see the outlines of a wheel-shaped device held reverently in the hands of a sommelier. It resembles the steering wheel of a sailing ship. It delicately grips the cap and turns in a mystical circular movement. Yes, there is hope.

DESIGN IN THE TOILET

CAUTION: This design analysis discusses defecation and related matters. Those who find these things disgusting should go no further (and probably should not be involved in design on the most serious levels.)

"I discovered, said Gargantua, by long and painstaking experiments a way to wipe my ass, the most lordly, the most expedient that ever was seen."
                  - Francois Rabelais, Gargantua & Pantagruel, trans. by Donald Murdoch Frame


It appalls me that, in a society overflowing with unnecessary toiletries of all kinds, the design of ass-wiping paraphernalia has remained in a primitive state. The dominant method of ass-wiping in advanced societies is to use a dry paper product. Dry paper is obviously an unsatisfactory to remove glutinous matter from the human skin. Moistness is essential to such a process.


We will put aside the bidet for the purpose of this discussion. It is too complex, too expensive, too ecologically demanding and too effete for a young country such as ours. The same is certainly true of  more complicated toilets which rinse, air dry and connect you to the internet.

For many years the solution was right in front of us in the form of moist tissues for wiping the asses of babies. But the product was not marketed for adults and only a few enlightened adults were clever enough to adapt the product to their purposes. (The adult user avoided the potential toilet stuffing problem by tearing the approximately 9-inch by 6-inch wipe in  half before using. Two such half-wipes were more than adequate for most ass-wiping purposes, followed by a minimal use of one or two sheets of ordinary toilet paper for drying purposes.)

I am happy to report that an attempt is being made to market moist toilet wipes to adults (years after introduction in Europe.) Kimberly Clark is leading the way with its Cottonelle brand. I have not yet tried them and I doubt they will match the baby wipes for cost effectiveness. When I have done more research I will report the results. I will also address the question of whether these products are indeed "flushable" as advertised.


As a concluding footnote I point out that the cleaning of the ass would be made easier in general if children were educated, at home or in school, to spread their ass cheeks when defecating. A survey has shown that, at present, only 58% of the population do so.

A CURE FOR DESIGNORRHEA

For a long time the single most pressing problem in design has been that too many unnecessary things are being designed and produced. I can't improve on what Victor Papanek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Papanek wrote in the preface to the first edition of his essential book, Design For The Real World. "In an environment that is screwed up visually, physically, and chemically the best and simplest thing that architects, industrial designers, planners, etc., could do for humanity would be to stop working entirely."



Papanek softened his view to advocate the practice of socially beneficial design but his basic premise is still valuable. In the spirit of his tirade I propose the following design to help designers restrain their "creative" impulses:


ANTI-DESIGNORRHEA GLOVES - A pair of gloves joined at the base of the palms. These would be a genteel way of applying handcuffs, keeping the hands of the designer away from further mischief  on computers, that primary contemporary adjunct to unnecessary design.These gloves would also prevent designers from sketching on paper pads and napkins, another practice which often leads to the spread of designed objects.


For example, had Philippe Starck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Starck, a leading sufferer from designorrhea, been in the habit of wearing these gloves it is possible we would have been spared such objects as the Juicy Salif, a "design object" masquerading as a juicer. Perhaps in a future ramble I will deal with the interesting subject of malfunctioning objects marketed and collected as "icons" of design.