What Kind Of Green Design Is Needed In Real Society

Chen Huawen / Wen

Design is an art closely related to commercial activities. Design is not creation, but good design brings convenience of life, enjoyment of beauty and Enlightenment of thought; bad design wastes resources, pollutes environment, and even breeds vanity. Victor Papanek, a famous American design theorist, advocated the concept of green design in the 1960s. However, it did not attract enough attention. Today, his idea is not only popular in the world, but also far-reaching in the future for a long time. In his book "design for the real world", he expressed his design standpoint and viewpoint in simple language. At the same time, he discussed the issues of design and society, design and morality, design and fashion.

What is discussed in this book is the problems within the scope of modern design. Corresponding to modern design, it is classical design, which has essential difference in value pursuit. In the traditional society where productivity is not developed, design is not important to ordinary people, while the upper class and nobles show a strong interest in classical design. The value pursuit of classical design is noble, elegant and complex. For example, Western classical furniture and architecture are particularly obvious. The value pursuit of modern design is gradually formed in the industrialized production and consumption society.

During the Weimar Republic of Germany in the 1920s, the teachers and students of Bauhaus design school completely abandoned the tedium and complexity of classical design and aimed at the public, highlighting the simple, bright and practical style. Since then, modern design style and its value have become the mainstream of the times. As we all know, "apple" brand in the United States follows the modern design value concept in product design. The extremely simple appearance design of computers and mobile phones is loved by people all over the world. However, many businessmen and artists often go to extremes.

Design is a huge family, its members include architectural design, product design, new media design, advertising design, graphic design, environmental design, fashion design and so on. Any kind of design involves the problem of design ethics. This book believes that: design should be people-oriented, not only for the healthy population, but also for the disabled. Design should carefully consider the problem of the earth's limited resources. If it can awaken the friendship between people and the harmony between man and nature, it is undoubtedly a good design.

As the title of this book says: all design, design for the real world. But it's not easy to do that. The time when this book put forward the concept of green design was the period of rapid social and economic development in Europe and the United States, as well as the explosion of modern art thoughts. In essence, design is the perfect combination of Commerce and art, but there are too many constraints to find a balance between the two. In order to attract customers, entrepreneurs try their best to arouse people's consumption desire in product appearance design and advertisement design. This kind of design highlights its commercial value too much, while its artistry becomes a vassal. There are also some designers who idealize and artistically design simply to show their artistic talent. As a result, such design is not the same, and both art and business are not pleasing to each other. Perhaps it is the difficult reconciliation of the relationship between commerce and art design that makes Victor papanaick reflect on the design itself.

The present is a period of design everywhere. Many classic design ideas in Europe and America have been used for reference and accepted by Chinese entrepreneurs and designers. It is worth noting that China's profound cultural tradition is often shelved in the design, and it is difficult to see the depth of Chinese elements in the design. For example, in many places, there are some buildings with huge investment but strange shapes, which are not beautiful and lack of practicability. On the contrary, Wang Shu's architectural design works such as Xiangshan Campus of China Academy of fine arts, Ningbo library, and Wenzheng College Library of Suzhou University integrate the ancient Chinese idea of "harmony between man and nature", and skillfully integrate architecture and nature, which are highly recognized by the international design community.

The concept of green design advocated in this book is the direction that needs to be worked hard for Chinese business and design circles. The waste of resources in Chinese design can not be ignored. For example, some wine and food manufacturers in China do not make efforts in the quality and environmental protection of their products, but do enough in packaging design to attract consumers' attention. There are two factors: one is that producers try to embody the nobility of products through packaging design, and pass on the luxury packaging costs to consumers; on the other hand, consumers are often difficult to judge the quality of products directly, so they often take the gorgeous degree of packaging as an important reference when choosing products.

Design practice and design education cannot be separated. At present, the design majors in Colleges and universities of our country are blooming everywhere, vigorously cultivating design talents. However, the design education in many schools often ignores the idea of "for whom" and "why", which leads to the unclear orientation of some design education programs, and it is difficult to produce good works that meet the needs of the times in the design practice. Design education should face the real world, constantly exert the charm of design discipline, and bring poetic and aesthetic feeling to our life.

After reading this book, the author believes that design for the real world is based on the specific era, environment and region, firmly establish the awareness of resource conservation, and uphold the attitude of harmonious coexistence between man and nature. At present, ecological and environmental protection has become a topic of common concern in all fields. The design community should pay more attention to responding to the social concerns of nature and environmental protection, so as to make design really useful and meet people's yearning for a better life.

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