The dated design mantra and a future with less stuff.

Heavy stuff
Human stuff out weights nature stuff at current trajectory of creation. Human made objects - buildings, boots, cars, tables, phones and such like, is going to have more mass than nature made stuff - flamingos, krill, elephants, grass, fungi, trees and such like. ⁠1

Credit: Amanda Montañez; Source: “Global Human-Made Mass Exceeds All Living Biomass,” by Emily Elhacham et al., in Nature. Published online December 9, 2020

This is a disturbing statistic of over consumption and resource depletion. Let’s look at this through the lens of product creation, design, and consumer experience.

Historically the culture of product creation in pre-industrial times, would see an individual creator produce an individual item. Industrialisation empowered the creator to make multiple amount of items. Vocabulary emerged alongside this new purpose for producers. It expanded to include selling, pushing growth and producing more items. Then enhancing that product through iteration and selling an update year after year.

Design mantra
Over these centuries we have been maturing a mantra for design and product development that essentially says “If we make this new thing, life will be better in the future.”

To a large extent, this has meant a great deal of improvement in peoples lives over centuries. Refrigerators, cars, washing machines, mobile phones, and a variety of other devices have helped ease daily burdens. The mantra was strong. There was real belief that life could be improved by a new thing. But now the benefits are becoming smaller and the risks becoming greater. The mantra is dated and exhausted.

Hacking the mantra to fit
I was at a circularity and climate change event recently. The majority of the audience were from the design industry. Although, well meaning the proposed solutions still broadly pushed the traditional design mantra, but now with a worrying rephrasing of the original to be less damaging.

“if we make this new “circular” thing, life will be better in the future”

The problem is, these hacks of the mantra have come and gone in the past - “if we make this new “faster”, “bigger”, or “cleaner” thing...”. Each fulfilling the consumer need of the time. Now consumers want to damage the environment less, so design adapts the mantra to fit that new purpose. And so justifies creation of a new products with this new “circular” characteristic. Maybe we should look at other parts of the design mantra to change.

Where should design look to in the future?
One aspect of design that is taking a different path is the area of Design Fictions. A space where almost no new products are made. Instead a fictional world of products exists to show alternative futures. Design fiction requires no new manufacturing sites, no new sales packs, or social media campaigns with influencers. An updated mantra that Design Fiction fulfils could be “If we fake this new thing, life will be better in the future.”

We could also change another part of the phrasing of the mantra in relation to endings “If we end this thing properly, life will be better in the future.” Avoiding a new product and eliminating an old one. Reducing the weight of human made stuff in the process.

1 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-made-stuff-now-outweighs-all-life-on-earth/