The arguments for good design involve issues beyond the formal elements as discussed in the article Berg posted. Sometimes those other issues, cost, audience preference, manufacturing habits, etc., take precedence over the formal concerns even when they don't need to. Sometimes bad design, or I should say, bad design arguments, lead to stupid and ultimately costly decisions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the design and manufacture of American automobiles from the 1950s onward, even to today.
Look at 1950s ads for American autos to see what I refer to. These ads emphasize style length, heaviness, engine power, extra gadgetry, and so forth, all features that led to the demise of the American auto industry. How did this happen? The answer is very simple. Somewhere in the 20C American manufacturing became a top down enterprise that led by marketing people and not engineers and design specialists. The engineers and design people were told what to make based on surveys and marketing results, including the wide use of psychological preference models. Almost all American manufacturers of consumer products, led by the auto industry, were led by marketing people, those who rose through the ranks as sales experts, and they in turn stuffed their corporate broards with similar colleagues while the engineers and designers were relegated to more passive positions. Thus with sales and costs uppermost, engineers were led to allow much wider specs for parts and materials and they were forced to incorporate fanciful, trendy exaggerations of design more suited to the fashion industry than to industrial manufacturing. Most of all, the basic philosophy of American manufacturing was changed to "make it only as good as it needs to be" -- mindful of fashion and programmed obsolescence -- and away from "as good as it can be" -- the prevailing ideal of 19C industry. We all know how crummy American autos were after the mid 1950s. They broke down frequently because the engineering tolerances for parts were too wide (and poorly fitted moving parts wobble,wear out, and easily break). They rusted out after a few years and were hugely uneconomical. ANY Japanese car was better than any American car because the Japanese manufacturing was led by engineers (not marketing heros who never held a wrench) and could make turnaround imporvements in weeks whereas any American car change took years because it was tied to fashion overhauls, not incremental performance and endurance improvements. Further, the Japanese held to tight specs and continually sought manufacturing improvements and economical costs. European autos were also better than American autos but unlike the Japanese favoring of economical methods/design/function they did not care about higher manufacturing costs that came with higher quality and thus aimed at the luxury markets. This is a long and sad story, easily verified in the literature. Until there is a genuine shift away from the American imperialism of wide-smile marketing and a restoration of an attitude to make things as well as they can be made -- with the use of newer methods and cost-saving materials -- we will not see a return to the great American economy we thought was our birthright. Push for getting the engineers and designers, with their rolled up sleeves and procket protectors back into the front windowed offices and reseat the bespoke suited salesmen in the inside offices where they don't have as much authority to tell a engineer to put a doo-dad in and take a washer out. WC --- On Thu, 3/19/09, joseph berg <[email protected]> wrote: > From: joseph berg <[email protected]> > Subject: "Innovation of new objects seems to go more and more toward the development of tawdry junk for the annual Christmas gift market.b > To: [email protected] > Date: Thursday, March 19, 2009, 12:00 AM > http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20090318/a-good-argument
