4 things a week: U-turns

Some weeks you just don't feel like writing. You'd think that after a week of talks, exhibitions and events at London Design Festival I'd be full of stories to tell, but maybe I just need some time to process it all. It seems to have left me a little cynical, but let's find something positive...

1. Earth

London Design Festival is a chance for designers from all over the world to show what they are made of. To show how key we are to projects across disciplines and across industries.?

However, at first glance LDF, like Milan Design Week, feels like walking into a d**k swinging competition. Brands launching yet another range of expensive furniture at shmoozy evenings of bubbly and caviar in an effort to seduce the media and one-up the competition. And that is not what design is about. At least not for most of the industry. Design is about user experience, problem solving, sustainability, accessibility and making people’s lives better. The challenge is, how do you communicate that? A show room of ￡900 chairs is one thing. Communicating the complex process, decision making, testing and development that goes into designing everything from a water bottle to an E-bike is something else.?

London has one of the strongest design agency scenes in the world, yet it seems like the only way any of them ever showcase themselves at design shows such as LDF or Salon de Mobile is not through their actual every day work, but by designing a chair. BLOND showcased their Peel chair at Milan this year, Beta Design Office their 001 Chair at LDF. LAYER did the same in 2019 with the Canopy collection.?All beautiful pieces, all with careful considerations for material use and end-of-life.

But the question I have is, since when did an agency have to make a chair to be considered worthy of exhibiting at a design festival? The world really doesn't need another chair.

2. Innovation

It's the week of U-turns.

Lego announced a U-turn on its recycled plastic or bio-based bricks because they can’t achieve the same? “colour, shine and sound” of an oil-based plastic brick whilst reducing carbon emissions. I think this is pretty much sums up the challenge we face in making products better for the planet. At some point there has to be a compromise. Either we compromise on the glossy red of our Lego bricks, or we compromise on the quality of our lives as the summer temperatures push the mercury past 50 degrees. I’m obviously not blaming Lego for global warming here… but you get my sentiment.

Right now though, brands have a hesitancy to make changes to their products that are better for the environment but may be perceived as a drop in quality to customers. And despite what we like to believe customers don’t prioritise sustainability when they shop for new products. So we have a chicken and egg situation. With the chicken waiting for guidance from policy makers who are too slow, or in the case on the UK, moving backwards.?

So it’s time for more brands to be less chicken and take the first step, engaging branding and messaging to communicate the rationale and educate consumers, and design to turn what could be seen as a drop in quality, into an opportunity for a positive user experience.

3. Morrama

Or perhaps the world be better off if we just stopped making things??

I know I’m not the only one in the industry that asks themselves this on a regular basis. Why don’t I just shut Morrama | Certified B Corp down and find a job as a consultant. Or run Design Declares full time. You could say the same about an oil rig. But what about the people working in those jobs? What would they do?

To be clear, there are no plans to close Morrama. We are on a journey. On that journey we will still be designing products, products designed for people, to help them, to be loved them. Products that, despite our efforts, may well do more harm than good to our planet. However we are working out how we can change that from within the system. If we were to all quit, do pHDs and write books about systems thinking, we would do less harm, but it’s only by applying those changes in the real world that we can make a difference.?

This might sound like I’m justifying it to myself and you would to some extent be right. Running a business is really hard, especially right now. Adding the constant reminder that we work in an industry dependent on production and consumption at a rate our planet cannot sustain; I feel that weight of responsibility. And I’m writing this because sharing helps. At LDF I was invited to speak about my work with Design Declares . What started as a campaign exactly one year ago, calling on the design industry to declare a climate emergency and take action, has become a global movement, with Design Declares Ireland launching their own chapter just this week. Being part of the community I’ve met some incredible people, had the chance to be vulnerable and admit to feeling scared about the future and been truly inspired by the work of others. We have recently set D! up as a charity so we can do more, support more designer teams, do more research and publish guidance on designing sustainably across disciplines.?

For those of you who want to find out more about Design Declares, visit our website , drop me a message or follow us on LinkedIn , I’d love to hear from you. We will also be speaking at the Design for Planet Festival hosted by the Design Council on 17-18 October, which is well worth checking out.

4. Inspiration

If there was one thing that left me inspired last week, it was the launch of the Ecological Citizens project. A 4 year project based at the Royal College of Art in collaboration with the 英国约克大学 's Stockholm Environment Institute and Wrexham University , to foster and proactively encourage climate positive action through Ecological Citizenship. For the creatives out there, there is ￡750,000 up for grabs for innovative ideas, research projects and pilots devising new-found ways to engage people with the natural world. This could be anything from a new technology to a citizen science project.

You can read more on their (super low-carbon) website here https://ecologicalcitizens.co.uk/ . As an advisor on the project, I'll also do my best to answer any questions you may have.

OK, well I certainly feel a bit more inspired after writing this down. Hope you do to... til next week!

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P.s. Just incase you got to the end of this and aren't sure who I am, I'm:

• an industrial designer (I design and engineer physical objects)
• founder of?Morrama | Certified B Corp
• former tutor of Design Futures at the?Royal College of Art
• co-instigator of?Design Declares