Plato, from The Dialogues, Cratylus, paragraph 402, Section a.
All is flowing: πάνταεĩ
This is not a book about design, it is not a design text book, but rather a collection of thoughts, analyses, and examples, paired with critical discussion as to how design, combined with innovation and smart technology can be put to good use in the consumer goods industry, especially in the food industry.
The food industry is probably not the first port of call when you look for good design, let alone great design.
Much comes down to the basics, i.e. manufacturing, marketing, distributing, and selling industrial food products in the most efficient and, for consumers, affordable ways, food that tastes good, is safe and nutritious, and is inexpensive. Most often, this does not allow for design in any form, with exceptions such as graphics and industrial design when it comes to packaging, or media design where communications and marketing are concerned, although the latter is even more rare than the former.
To say it right from the start, we feel that design is grossly and almost “criminally” underused in the food industry. If it is used, it is mostly for the more trivial matters such as logos, fonts, and colors. This is not to say that these are unimportant or easy tasks, but they are, by far, not enough. If designers are present in the activities of the food industry, they are rather kept at arm's length and in check by the marketing folks.
This book intends to make the point that not only are designers of many more disciplines tremendously important for the present and future successes of food corporations, but that designers should actually play an active and decisive role at the executive board level of any food company that strives for greater heights and greater success. It is the thought process of designers that is perfectly complementary to the other, more traditional thought processes already represented at board level, the MBAs, the finance experts, the marketing experts, the odd technical expert, and the lawyers. Fresh blood is dearly needed and designers can supply it!
The title of this chapter states that “all is flowing,” the ancient Greek πάντα
εĩ (panta rei) as Heraklitos of Ephesos formulated it around 500 BC and on which Plato elaborated in one of his “Dialogues.” He was referring to water and life in general, which is pretty large and daunting in itself. What it refers to here is the fact that over the years of development in the manufacturing and especially consumer goods industry, the notion of design has always been present and has always changed in importance and relevance, very much depending on the importance of form and function in the context of manufactured goods.
When we look at the early days of the automotive industry, over 100 years ago, function and functionality, the surmounting of technical hurdles, and the solution of technical challenges were the most important, overriding principles. Design was not at the forefront of the thought process of mechanical engineers or engineers in general, for that matter. Getting things done and making them work was more important. The technical challenges were large and difficult enough, so there was not much room for anything else.
With the advent of the production line, as introduced by Henry Ford to manufacture the famous and notorious Ford T models, design elements were becoming more important, and engineers would design shapes and forms that were very much based on functionality and the direct needs of the end user, the driver of the vehicle. We may call this approach “down-to-earth” design (DtE design), with little or nothing that goes beyond the straightforward desire to deliver something that works, is functional, and, most of all, is affordable.
The element of “it works” is fulfilled by the increasing competence of the engineers, the “functional” is the first sign of good design, and the “affordable” can clearly be linked to the production methods that were introduced for the first time in those days.
The next quantum leap in the history of design came with the invention of plastic materials and their industrial usage. The year 1907 marked the invention of “Bakelite,” followed by the creation of “Formica” in 1913. However, it took more than 30 years before the synthetic materials, plastics, came into the mainstream and were heavily used in many different industries, most importantly in furniture and consumer goods (Lewin, 1991).
Very rapidly, the automotive industry developed a very strong and years-long love affair with increasing design elements of a non-functional nature, and this trend can very easily be seen in the American cars of the 1950s and 1960s, which really seemed to be the playground of designers, where they could realize their most extraordinary fantasies and dreams. Functionality was second and design elements even became dangerous additions to otherwise very functional vehicles.
When the Bayer company of Leverkusen in Germany invented polycarbonate in the late 1950s and early 1960s they also wanted to show its versatility beyond simple household goods such as glasses, plates, cutlery, bottles, baby bottles, and the like, which resisted far higher temperatures than other plastic materials at the time. The first-generation polycarbonate could be used at temperatures of up to almost 130 °C and was therefore quite unique in those days. But Bayer had another ambition too: it wanted to prove that its innovative plastic material could be used in the automotive industry, and not just in a few parts here and there, replacing steel and other metals, but in the entire car, from the engine bay, to the trunk, to the passenger cabin, and the body.
Thus, back in the mid-sixties, Bayer revealed the first, fully plastic (except, of course, the engine, exhaust, and gearbox) concept car. Long before its time, this concept car was a strong harbinger of things to come and led the way to an increased use of plastic materials in the car industry and automotive design.
If we follow this line, we can also observe that metal shaping knowhow became increasingly sophisticated, and plastic molding and steel or aluminum forming became concurrently and widely used technologies during these years and into present times, thus enabling designers to play with all these materials in many new and exciting ways.
As we said above, “all is flowing,” and so is design or rather the approach to design and its perception and role in today's world. When you ask people, “What is design?”, most link it to fashion. It's the standard answer of the average, “uninitiated” person, which you will get probably two times out of three. What does this mean? Well, most likely, the world of fashion has made a better job in promoting one of their more important elements of success, which is, undoubtedly, design. This also means that other industries have not been equally successful.
Let us again use the automotive industry as an example. After the “sins of the 50s,” the design of cars was very much toned down and safety elements became the driving force. There was and is nothing wrong with this, as it has certainly helped to make driving safer these days. There was one factor, perhaps, that weighed even more in increasing drivers' safety and that was the introduction of random checks by the police, which was by design, but has nothing to do with design.
Remember the Volvo bumpers? Huge promontories with lots of rubber, definitely advancing the safety features on vehicles, and also certainly helping the shareholders of the rubber industry. Every car, all of a sudden, seemed to have them, even the MGB of 1975. Design, once again, was secondary, the driving force was functionality in the constructive disguise of safety. Remember, all is flowing and so is design.
At the end of the day, it's all about form and function and the struggle to get a harmonious balance between these two basic and crucial elements. So, fashion has done a good job. Who else? Let us expand a little bit on education, on schools and colleges, places where design is taught and where the future (or present) designers will come from (came from).
Design schools probably existed longer than we would imagine and we may argue that Guarneri's or Stradivari's workshops with many students or apprentices were already design schools. What better item is there than a wonderful and well-sounding violin to show the fantastic equilibrium between form and function. And it goes farther: the choice of materials, not only the woods but also the paints, the mixtures of natural ingredients, the way of cutting, gluing, sanding, applying, and finishing off such an instrument. Students were taught and they learned how to do this work, how to create these objects of musicians' desires, and how to optimally balance form and function. If this is not design, and if this is not a school of design, then we would not recognize reality.
But we can go back even further: the Sumerians, Hammurabi's mask, and other related relics were not only works of devotion and art, but totally designed, the marble lions of Delos, the buildings in ancient Greece, where architecture and art, design ultimately, came together, joined forces, and left wonderful signs of design; all this was taught, and students, apprentices, and future masters went through schools that we would call design schools by today's standards.
All is flowing!
So, back to the present day, because that's what has to interest us in the context of this book, namely the role of design in today's industry, especially in today's food industry, and how this links to technology and innovation in general. And, back to the question, how today's designers are educated and where this takes place and what is the emphasis on the different topics taught in such schools. Let's show a few examples and discuss the various orientations of these institutions.
Design schools can be found almost all over the developed world. Not so long ago in 2004/2005, Lim Kok Wing opened his “College of Creative Technology” in Cyber Jaya not far away from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The school very quickly drew almost 4000 students with more than two-thirds from South East Asia and the remainder from Asia Pacific (Australia, New Zealand).
The location is a very interesting one, being one corner of the triangle “Kuala Lumpur—Airport and Formula 1 circuit—Cyber Jaya/Putra Jaya”, the last being the seat of the prime minister and the government of Malaysia.
Cyber Jaya is the location of many more university colleges, the Lim Kok Wing School being just one, yet a rather large school given that it is a design college. The school intrigues by its architecture as well as the diversity of offerings, of branches that are taught. It's in a tropical environment, therefore the building has a center space that is just like a big tent, wide open on two sides and a meeting place for students from all the different design branches. And there are numerous branches, the usual ones from graphics to industrial design, but also the less typical ones such as hair design (yes, hair design is design too) to fashion and media design.
Staff and students proudly showed us different communication campaigns that the media design students did in the past for well-known politicians and that were a great example of what design can be, namely a vehicle to shape not only an object but even more so a process, an evolution, something that is on its way to being shaped and created.
It is not so much the final object and its perfect shape, form and function that are of importance, but almost more importantly the way, directional as well as procedural, that one gets there.
This aspect of...
