Making less into more

This is the trailer for a film about the process of turning resources into objects through the eyes of the designers who change the stuff of thought into the stuff of material goods.  According to fast company a large section of the film is dedicated to the designers contemplation of the fact that most of what they create ends up  in landfill and a little less time to the process of marketing and business strategy that arguably focuses on making this happen at faster and faster speeds.

I am sure that designers can do great things to prevent the life of objects ending so frequently in giant holes in the ground or causing harm when they do end up there.  There are lots of different ways to do this which go under the heading of 'life cycle thinking.'  I.e. make the product last longer, make it recyclable, make it less energy intensive,  using sustainable non-toxic materials.

The implication of much of this is to brief the designer using the notion of less; that 'less is more.'  The designer will not have much of a problem getting their heads around this.  It actually has the makings what seems like a great design brief.  Its more the business and also the end consumer who will struggle more with this idea.  Generally for business the idea of 'more is more' makes more sense.  Bigger products, bought more often, in higher numbers to fulfill ever more undiscovered needs = more profits and growth.  If the designer is working within the rules of this environment then their hands are tied.  

Of course its not quite this straight forward and there are lots of different progress scenarios such as selling more of a product with more sustainable credentials so that less of a 'bad' product is sold, and selling more of a product but making the overall material and energy use less.  In these two examples there are some useful 'less' concepts attached to the notion of more from a sales perspective.  However one of the scenarios must also be the idea of less consumption of the products that companies make and designers design - radical stuff!  Fine for people to talk about outside of companies but a pretty risque idea to discuss within the corporate environment.  However its the people inside companies that create the design brief more than the people outside and so its an important question.  Companies are legally bound to maximize profits for shareholders and so proactively acting against the interest of profits is off limits.  So its this that is the real design brief - designing the company and the business model where less consumption is good for business thus giving the product designers the opportunity to use their skills sustainably.  I plan on dedicating a number of posts to collecting some of the thinking in this area.