Series 2 Episode 3: Back to Basics

• Everything is designed.
• Better design makes life better for everyone.
• Everyone is a designer.

But what does all that mean? This episode goes back to the basics of what the podcast is about, including a practical illustration of how we are all designers.

Transcript

Kevin: 0:12

Right. Hello everyone and welcome to Yes, another scintillating edition of Make Life Better By Design With me, Kevin Drayton. Now, I'm gonna start off today by really recapping on the fundamentals of what this podcast series is about. The most important point is that everything is designed. Look around you, everything you see, everything you interact with, it's all designed. Point two: better design makes life better for everyone. And 0.3: everyone is a designer. Okay? So I will, I'll expand upon that a bit. Um,'cause it all seems a bit,'oh really?' If you're not used to it. Now, design, um, for the purposes of this series is about making choices and taking decisions. That is why everyone is a designer, and I, divide people up into two types: they're either, uh, a professional designer, somebody who designs for a living. Uh, and I distinguish those by giving them a capital D. And then the other designers with a small D is absolutely everybody else. Now, not only that, we've talked about choices and decisions. Well, really, uh, if you are a run of the mill person, just about every decision that you take is actually a design decision. You may not be aware of it, but it is and because that is the case, the more informed, the more educated, the more aware we are of design generally, but educated, uh, and experienced in the particular area, that we're making choices on taking decisions, the better. We can actually contribute more to the overall good of society, the better we are at that. And indeed when you talk about professional designers, well then the better educated they are, uh, the more experienced they are, it is likely that they're gonna make better choices and decisions. So I think the other thing that's worth saying, that's relevant to this series, is that as far as I'm concerned, good design is for everyone. It's inclusive. It's not exclusive, so I don't care who you are, where you are, what you do: as an inhabitant of this planet, you deserve good design and the planet itself deserves good design. One of the things that we can talk about later is the fact that we seem to have a climate crisis. We have problems with pollution and this and that and the other. Good design can help any and all of those things I've talked about everybody being a designer. And some people say to me, well, hang on. I can't make a choice or a decision that's going to influence certain things. I can, I can deal with my immediate environment, my own particular requirements, and so on, but the bigger picture. Uh, the world outside my tiny little orbit: what can I do about that? And I would say that you do that by looking at what those bigger issues are and becoming an advocate and pressing for those choices and decisions, design decisions that you think are going to improve, uh, the, the wider environment, the bigger community. I, I, I feel it's true to say that. Ultimately everything changes and I think it, it does, but I also think it can do it in one of three ways. Sometimes things actually change far more slowly than they could if nobody actually bothers about it. So I think there are problems, there are things that could be improved by good design that have been left as they are for a bit too long, because, well, you know, I'm not really bothered about that. That's somebody else's issue. Secondly, and this is a tricky one, because change in itself is not automatically always for the better. So just because we have made a choice in taking a decision, uh, unfortunately doesn't necessarily mean that we are improving things And then the third, which might seem a bit paradoxical, is that, hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sometimes there's a feeling that, well, this has been around for a long time. Uh, I think we can do better than that. But the truth is that if it's working well, if it's satisfying your needs, your wants, fine, let it go. There are designs, there are design decisions that have been taken a long time ago. Long-lived designs that are in fact perfectly serviceable, uh, and worth retaining, uh, from years and years and years and years and decades and centuries ago. I mean, one of the great things about being an architect is that you get to look into all these fantastic old buildings, um, some of which, but, you know, go to Rome. Uh, it's all you need to do. Just go to Rome and you will see how good design in architecture can actually be perfectly serviceable and contribute to the environment centuries later. My mantra is always make life better. Now, in this case, this podcast series, it's Make Life Better by Design. Doesn't have to be; for me design touches just about everything. So it's an easy, easy format to take. Uh, I can take in and talk about virtually anything I like. But here's another one, which is a bit of a paradox. I am always told podcasts are most successful when they are serving a particular niche group, particular interest. I'm interested in all sorts of things, uh, which for me are design related, but it can be, it can be town planning, it can be watches, it can be, uh, gardening, it can be pens and pencils. You name it. I can be interested in it. But, um, this is where the niche business and the generalist comes in. I am never gonna be able to talk in as much detail about any of those subjects as podcasts or YouTube videos that are by real specialists in that field. When you say that's another very good reason for not bothering to spend my time with you, well, yeah, it could be, but it's like being an architect. When you're an architect, you are a generalist. You have to accept that you may specialize in a particular type of building. Uh, I never did because, um, well, I've got a very, very low threshold of boredom. But even so, even if you were to specialize in one particular building type, you are never gonna know as much about the components, the trades that are involved in your building type as the particular tradesmen and so on do. The number of times I've been to a site and had a brickie, a roofer, a joiner, an electrician, a sparky, as we would call them, explain things to me that I had a general idea about, but I didn't really know the detail and the minutiae. So you say, okay, well bypass the architect, go straight to these individuals. But what the architect does, and indeed what I hope this podcast series can do is to connect it all, bring it all together, synthesize all these different areas, uh, of interest, of skill, of experience, and synthesize them into an overall view: connect them. Only connect, which is another phrase that I bandy about all the time. Not mine of course, it's from E M Forster's novel Howard's End. But I think it's, uh, it's got a lot going for it. So there we are. That's the general premise of these podcasts. It's why, despite the fact that I know a little bit about a lot of things, not a huge amount about any, that I still think I've got something worthwhile and that can be of use to people if they work on and develop them. Look, the podcast title is Make Life Better by Design. It could be Make Life Better by Nutrition, make Life Better by Exercise, make life better by whatever: Psychotherapy. But no, design is so general you can hang virtually anything you want to do onto that hook and that's what I'm gonna do. What I think is worth doing is just taking a quick example of the practical application of the points that I'm trying to make. So let's take a, a very simple situation that I'm sure the vast majority of us can relate to. We get up in the morning, we go to the kitchen and we're gonna make a cup of coffee. Okay? Now that's simple, straightforward, there can't be much involved in that. But let's just unpack that a bit. You're going to have a cup of coffee. Now, when I say a cup of coffee, do I mean a cup? Do I mean a mug? So there's a choice there. Ironically, I prefer neither of those. I prefer those, um, bowls that the French drink coffee in. When I was knee high to a grasshopper, I went on an exchange visit to France. Saw these, used them for the first time'cause the family I stayed with were using them and I've loved them ever since. And my morning coffee tastes best if it's in one of these nice simple French bowls. Okay, so that's that. Now you've made your decision it's cup or it's mug, or it's, I don't know, a vase if that's what turns you on. So think about that. What, what size ideally do you like it to be? Do you like a long drink? Do you like a short drink? And is that a good size for you, the one that you've got, that you've chosen? What about, let's say it's got a handle. Is that comfortable to use? Does it actually make it easy for you to carry around and sup from Or is it a bit awkward? A bit too small, you can't really grip it properly, or it's actually too big and your finger goes in through the, uh, the handle and then slips about? What's it made of? Is it very fine porcelain? Is it stoneware? Do you think about that? Have you made a conscious decision about that? Or are you simply making do with what Aunt Mable happened to give you a few years ago? And if you are, that may be fine. What I'm asking is, have you really considered it? Is it your choice? Did you make a decision about that? And if there's anything about it that you know, I'm not, not entirely happy about that. I mean, what colour is it? Has it got patterns all over it? Is it plain? Which would you prefer? Now that's the first thing we've encountered having got up. I could work backwards and ask about your bed linen, how considered was your choice of that bed linen? We can then move on and go through just about everything that you're gonna come into contact with, your towels, your shower, your soap, your toothpaste, your toothbrush. They've all been designed. There are options in virtually all of them. Have you made a conscious decision about them or have you just either picked up what happened to be there or had'em slung at you and you get on with it? Now you may be sitting on top of the world, one of the happiest people I could possibly meet. And if you are, that's great. But sometimes daily life can be made just that little bit better with changes in some of the design decisions that you take. With that example of the Breakfast cup, the breakfast mug, you could extrapolate that to other parts of your day, things you come into contact with. But we might need to look a little further, properly to understand how that might be adapted to broader situations. And I'm quite happy, uh, to do that in later podcasts. But for the moment, I hope I've made it clearer what this series is all about, why I think it is worth taking note of and why I think it's worth practicing improving our choice and decision making. That I'm afraid is it for this week. I hope you've stayed with me, and I very much look forward to seeing you again in the not too distant future. Many thanks for listening. Bye for now.