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Engaged design

Design . . .  should be elegant and pleasing.   It should also be functional and achieve its purpose.   Most importantly its purpose should be our purpose.

Engaged design in New Zealand

New Zealand has a strong tradition in design and a temperamental inclination  to engagement.   Well-worn jokes include the No 8. wire used to fix anything and everything on the Kiwi farm and the Kiwi dislike of large organisations.  A British general is reputed to have commented that Kiwi troops do not salute much.  His Kiwi counterpart replied, “but if you wave they will wave back.”

Tradition of design in New Zealand

Kiwis are articulate though about their design and their participation.   The Britten Instituge supports community activity and has an accessible, unpretentious,  list of design principles to bring people together.

“It is not innovation that matters, it is agreement. And we might need innovation to reach agreement.”

Design in Europe

I am very interested in reconciling the two bodies of knowledge that Western thought likes to keep apart if not regarding them as competitors.

Positive psychology promotes our engagement with life and of work with our engagement!  Yet we must make money too and the world is about to get very much more competitive for those of us in United Kingdom.  I have far more visitors to this blog to manage a small server than I do because someone wants to be happy!

What we want from design today?

Can we reconcile the holistic, engaged Britten approach to technical work?  I would like to try.

 

 

Published in Design

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