What is design? What is design to you? Is there such a thing as African design? Moreso is there such a thing as South African design? Is there a need for it? Should we worry about it? Are we, Africans, using design?
I was watching television yesterday, thank god, and I saw this campaign for the 'national construction week (ncw)'. The running of the advert was good, until the end of it where they throw in logos and the identities of the companies or organisations involved, they looked bad, really bad.
So, it got me thinking again, do we design, at all, or do we just create images that are thrown in just, nje? Should this be something to be concerned about. I personally, and professionally think so. I remember I was reading up on design a while back, and how design has been used through the ages. It turns out Hitler and his crew used design to make thier 'campaign' more believable and sell-able to the masses. Would you say it worked? I think it did.
Quite recently, actually the Bush Adminstration used design to sell the Iraq war. They hired an advertising agency to promote the need for war. Do you think it worked? Is it moral? Close to home, the ANC hired O&M (i could never spell thier name) for the election campaign, did it work? Is it moral?
The morality of it you can decide, but I do think that design can also be used by those, who want to achieve greater things, peace, humanity, harmony, eleviate porverty, hunger, wars and the likes. Why do they fail? To some extend I do believe it comes back to how thier message is 'visually' consumed. We all know that the Apple Ipod is successfull not because they brought us an innovative product, hell mp3 players have been around for quite a bit, but it is how they sold it, how they told thier story, how design was used in 'selling' the product.
Now imagine if the Anti-Woman abuse campaigners started relying on 'good design' rather than just the message itself.
I don't know, maybe I am pissed of, that everytime we, Africans, produce something that is not designed, it will appear as sub-standard, regardless. I believe design works. I suppose too it has to do with the perception that what is beautiful is trusted, but ugly is not trusted.
But, how far from the truth is it?