THE POWER AND BEAUTY OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN

Viewing The power & beauty of industrial design talk from Ross Lovegrove at TED was a pleasant window to the 21st century’s Industrial Design. His way of interpreting nature & using various ways of our latest technologies to come up with stunning products is just an entrée for what Lovegrove has to show. He presents new materials which are striking as pioneering, also with the presentation of new primary sources come various new possibilities of production & use within a context. The overall presentation is a view of Lovegrove’s inspiration in nature & how he presents a solution to our natural environment demands as well as our human needs, bringing them together in harmony with balanced products.

With a mocking attitude, his attacks on shallowness & mass selling designs are expressions of nobility. Lovegrove refuses to give up in his search of innovative designs that has a balance purpose & not a marketing target which prostitutes dreams. When he describes his perception of design & the analysis process to develop a form, it is quite a theory when he talks about Design/Nature/Art (DNA). This is a presentation of Lovegrove’s interpretation of design, which should be inspired by nature & perceived as art. As a designer, he talks about the way in which we can achieve a final product: Observation, Curiosity & Instinct. These are the key factors to interpret its nature & molde forms inspired by it. Blend these nethods & use imagination to make everything possible. With a final addition of our avant-garde products & manufacturing techniques & we are now in the field of 21st century’s design. (Or our captain organic plans)

Either way if his presentations of organic theories are the main feature or not, it is mouth opening the forms & materials that he has come up with: The magnesium chair, atomic shaped furniture, possibility of using common organic materials such as food for biodegradable products, between other concepts. With explanation of evolution & observation of nature Lovegrove searches for answers in the clues that our environment presents him. His passion for new texture, materials & shapes is admirable. Just for his ability also to create a form & make this one harmless & also a merging part with an environment is an achievement as designer.

I can admire & follow Lovegrove for ever but I should question as well some of his ideas. Through his talk, his presentation of models & experiments are beautiful, complex sometimes & simple in others. When he presented a spherical car which has a mush lesser number of components & works on solar energy, which is also an architectural attachment to your neirbourhood street as a public light; I have to say that the dream is beautiful. Nevertheless, being objective the car is one of our most used creations on earth, where speed & image are key features of its purpose. The presentation of a slower & subectively uglier version of a car will not apply to our society's consumerist demands & from a designers point it is a pity. Let’s hope that us as designers of the future, can come up with a more apropiate presentations of organic, enviromentaly friendly & products aproved by society.