Wednesday, March 03, 2010

2010 Brit Insurance Design Awards

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8536000/8536968.stm

"showing how design can move off into other areas....closer to art." Deyan Sudjic, Design Museum Director.

Showcasing some neat designs (like the folding plug by Korean designer Min-Kyu Choi) and some unconvincing ones (like plant lock: is it really heavy enough to stop it being lifted off somewhere?).


I do agree with Sudjic in his quote that design sometimes sways towards the world of art but many times this is its undoing: it sometimes is so close to art it fails in its functional spec. Design does a job and looks good. Or looks good and does a job: an old debate started by the form follows function lobby of the early part of the Twentieth Century.

Is it enough to ask, "Does the design fulfil the function set out in the specification?"? Is ornament crime?

Well, there's plenty in the designs of 2010 awards to give you food for though on this matter.




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