When I watch the Ted talk by William Mcdonough, the quote "the fundamental issue is that for me design is the first signal of human intention" strongly grabbed my attention.
I sturdily believe this quote is a fact. No one will design and create anything that does not have any meaning to it.
In William Mcdonough's Ted talk , he said that the design of the toy duck has some problems. Usually, people do not see anything wrong with the duck; however, you will notice the problem when you look more carefully.
This duck is suppose to be safe because it is a toy for children, but on the back of the duck, it said " the product contain chemicals known by the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproduction harm". After seeing this, a question popped up in my mind: What is the intention of this design? Was the toy duck made for gaining profit or for the good of children?
Now, tie "Design's intention" to "Ecology of commerce" we read. In the reading, it talks about how business affect the world from many things. When I read the reading, the first thing that popped out from my mind was credit card. The invention of credit card seem harmless but it is actually harmful. Credit cards can cause financial crises.
Relate to what we've learned in English class "Things that make us feel safe is the thing that give us control". I think that the true intention of credit card is to take money away from people. Credit cards make people buy things without considering the price, which is a bad buying habit. People receive bills later, but a lot of people could not afford the bills, therefore the bills becomes huge debts. From the example, I think our intention for designing things is getting worse and worse and I believe the consequences will affect everyone, including the people who design the product.
The impact corporations can bring is huge. I think that organization, group, and corporation should design things with good intention and be ethically responsible for the design they make. Only good intention can make our society and environment better.
The first few days in Ecuador
12 years ago
4 comments:
Nice blog entry. I liked the quote you used as well. It made me start to think about why things are created. There has to be an intention behind design. You asked the question,"It is for money or children?" I would argue that it is for both. Obviously the corporation that makes the rubber ducks wants to make money. Who would want a rubber duck? Little kids! We saw this in the movie, The Corporation. The way enterprises advertise their products is devious. They want money and the population that will help them achieve that is our youth today. Nice blog entry!
I agree with you! A lot of things are made for making our life easier, but the item usually has some bad side-effect to the environment and us.
After watching "The Corporation", I feel that a lot of items made were to earn money.
In order to reduce harmful effects to zero, the designer really needs to spend a lot of time to think about and do research on how to make the product less harmful.
It takes a long time and tremendous amount of effort, especially try to change how the Mother Culture works.
I like this post!
Like how you even connected to a current event.
As for the rubber ducky, I would say it's all for money. Because of money, they had to use cheaper materials, which probably had some problems and so contained chemicals that cause cancer. If it were for children, then they would at least test the materials and see if they are safe for little kids.
I think that some corporations do have good intentions at first, but as time pass by, they may not get the amount of they need, so they started to shift directions and be more competitive!!
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