Good or bad design? The verdict(s)

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, launched a competition to design a new bus for the city. The winning design, above, by the architects Foster + Partners and the sports car maker Aston Martin, was unveiled late last year. (Transport for London)

Published: January 30, 2009
By Alice Rawsthorn
Original Article http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/30/arts/design2.php

DAVOS, Switzerland: What is good design? It's a seemingly simple question, that's surprisingly difficult to answer. The more you think about it, the more complex the question becomes. Not only does "good design" mean different things to different people, it also changes at different times and in different contexts.

Some of the world's leading designers were challenged to define what "good design" means now in a debate at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. At the debate, which I moderated, each designer was asked to identify one example of "good" and one example of "bad" design, and to explain the reasons for their choices. What did they come up with?

Everyone agreed that "good design" had to fulfill its function efficiently. Tim Brown, president of the IDEO design group in San Francisco, used the examples of the Flip video camera and Amazon's electronic book, the Kindle. "The Flip is a great example of design simplification," he explained. "Every step of the process of taking, downloading, editing and distributing video has been made simple and seamless. Whereas the Kindle is a great idea, poorly executed. The accidental operation of buttons happens constantly, and it's uncomfortable to hold, which for a book is a very bad idea. My Kindle sits unused on my desk whereas the Flip goes everywhere."

Inefficient design can have grave consequences. Brian Collins, chairman of the Collins creative consultancy in New York, told the cautionary tale of the prescription pill bottles doled out by pharmacies. Traditional prescription bottles often look so similar and their labels are so badly printed that people can easily take the wrong medicine by mistake. That's what happened to the grandmother of the American designer Deborah Adler, who decided to find a solution. She designed clear, legible prescription labels for bottles that can be customized by adding colored plastic rings so you can spot a particular type of pill at a glance. Adler's design is now used by the Target retail group for its ClearRX pharmacy range.

But sometimes efficiency isn't enough. Paola Antonelli, senior curator of design and architecture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, contrasted the "cheap and efficient, but ugly" Jersey traffic barriers with the "graceful, elegant, playful" version on the streets of Milan. The Milanese have nicknamed them "panettone," after the traditional cakes whose shape they share. Designed by the great Italian architect Enzo Mari, they can be moved around the city as the traffic flow changes, and double as impromptu seats.

A similar emotion vs. efficiency debate has erupted over the design of London's buses, as Hilary Cottam, the social designer and founding director of Participle, explained. Londoners still reminisce fondly about the Routemaster doubledecker bus, which was withdrawn from service in 2005. Popular though the Routemaster was, it was very difficult for small children, elderly people, or parents with strollers to get on and off, and virtually impossible for anyone in a wheelchair. Those problems were solved by the design of one of its successors, the articulated or "bendy" bus, which is easily accessible but widely loathed by Londoners. "The bendy bus is very easy to get on to and can carry twice as many passengers and more people can sit down," said Cottam. "My question is, what is good design? The old Routemaster, which looks great, but is hard for most people to use? Or the new bendy bus, which has improved travel for the majority

The rational answer would, of course, be the bendy bus, but can something be "good design" if no one enjoys using it? That's why London's new(ish) mayor, Boris Johnson, launched a competition to design a new bus which, he hoped, would be as endearing as the Routemaster, as accessible as the "bendy" but environmentally responsible too. The winning design, by the architects Foster + Partners and the sports car maker Aston Martin, was unveiled late last year as a neo-Routemaster sporting solar panels. It is now navigating the treacherous waters of London's transport politics.

The London mayor was right to insist that the new bus be environmentally responsible, because that's another non-negotiable component of "good design," albeit one that has attained the status relatively recently. As the environmental crisis has deepened, it has become impossible to ignore the ecological implications of everything we consume. However gorgeous, witty, ingenious and even useful something is, we can no longer consider it to be a design success unless it is also ethically and environmentally responsible.

Occasionally a project embraces all of those qualities. Take the Tubercle Technology wind turbine blades chosen by Kigge Mai Hvid, chief executive of the Index: Design to Improve Life awards in Copenhagen. Developed for the Canadian company WhalePower, the blades are shaped like the scalloped flippers of humpback whales. The scalloping helps to lift the whales out of the water, and the blades to rotate smoothly. "It has a simple, functional beauty that you almost only find in nature," noted Hvid. "Also it's a great example of how design can positively impact our environment."

Scoring sustainability points is now so important that it can compensate for other shortcomings. The industrial designer Yves Béhar, president of fuseproject in San Francisco, cited the example of the Smart car. Conceived as a compact, fuel-efficient city car, it was launched in 1997 to rave reviews, but poor sales. The Smart's progress was then bedeviled by financial problems, technical squabbles and snipes about its styling. Béhar reckons that even the gas-guzzling Hummer beat it on aesthetics.

But the case for the Smart has strengthened as the market for fuel-efficient cars has expanded, and an all-electric version is to be launched next year. "The Smart car is a great idea, compromised at first, but now getting a second chance," said Béhar. "What makes the Smart win is its respectful, responsible and efficient concept, adding value to the world."