Design Changes Everything

I recently visited the Enzo Mari exhibition at the Design Museum here in London, which I would highly recommend to all of you. It is on until the 8th of September. ?

Here is a link to the Design Museum exhibition page: Enzo Mari - Design Museum

I was struck by a kind of optimism at the heart of many of Enzo Mari’s greatest pieces. In the design work we do at EY, EY Seren, and the other studios that make up our global design network, we have a significant focus on designing services, which have unique physical, human and digital characteristics, but we don’t often discuss the ‘materiality’ of what we are designing, whereas in an industrial design context, for example, and certainly for Enzo Mari, material is everything.

Perhaps in Service Design, the materiality we are designing with is more experiential, even ephemeral, sometimes harder to pin down, immaterial even; it is how we shape and hold a conversation about a customer’s financial need, or healthcare issue, or access to critical government services, or their anxiety about charging ranges in electric vehicles, how we make things easier, simpler, more human, even as those experiences become more digital, experiences we shape, form and fill with empathy and purpose. We are designing for, and to change, behaviour.

The service experience is, in some cases, the design of that conversation, supported by human-to-human interaction, digital self-service channels, and more and more, human-to-machine interactions, powered by GenAI, experiences that pass the Turing Test and win the Imitation Game.

Another critical dimension of that ‘material’ we are designing services with is the regulation that sits at the heart of transformation for the industries our design teams at EY Seren specialise in and serve, such as financial services, government, healthcare and energy. Industries with an important role to play in a more sustainable future, and industries that need the empathy, collaboration, and courage I believe only design can bring. We completed a study recently with the RCA called Leading Design Works, where we explore this in depth, and you can download the report and read more about it here https://www.leadingdesign.works/.

But back to Enzo Mari. So much depends upon the materiality of the object, of the things we choose to use to express what is we are trying to express with design. One piece in particular I think sums up the observations I had about the exhibition is the fruit bowl that’s made out of a piece of steel, slightly bent on either end. The ‘Putrella Series’ I believe represents the kind of optimism and courage we need from design, and designers, today.

As we look at this object made of steel, a raw material that lacks the kind of delicacy and plasticity we would normally find in a material choice for a fruit bowl designed for the kitchen, we are perhaps at first surprised. We are drawn immediately into the material, we are invited to form an opinion, have a reaction, begin a conversation about what that material choice might mean and represent for us, in our world. It makes me think about the historical context within which Enzo Mari was designing. A new Europe was emerging from the devastation of WWII and rebuilding itself, ready for a more optimistic future.

The material he put on the kitchen counter would have been something everyone would have seen on construction sites in cities across Europe, and still do today, a raw material that becomes invisible, becomes hidden beneath the surface structure of new buildings, of new economies, of a new society and the social structures that were emerging.? Also invisible, hidden behind the surfaces of these new buildings, where the labour and industry that would allow the extraction of raw materials at scale, and the manufacturing of steel to drive this great period of economic growth.

When I think about the new conversational design of experiences, and new intersections of both visible and invisible interfaces, I wonder what it would mean to make that ‘infrastructure’ more visible, what would it mean to bring it to the surface?

I believe one of the things Enzo Mari is trying to get us to do with this object, presented in the heart of the home, in the heart of the family, is to shape a conversation, to begin a discussion about this material, its use and implications, what it means for the cities we are building and designing, for the environment and for people working everyday to create this material, to build the buildings all around us. The material becomes the design, the material choice is the conversation, and Enzo Mari, I believe, is that beautiful optimist at the heart of all great design, where an object, placed in our home, with a sense of utility and surprise, can start a conversation, and through that conversation, change our minds. And it is not lost on me that the designer takes the piece of steel and bends it, ever so elegantly at either end, demonstrating our capabilities as human beings to create, to shape, to take the problems of the world, in whatever shape we find them, and make it into something different, better, unique. Perhaps even beautiful. To re-use an everyday material and make it new.

Today we are thinking more and more about sustainability, well-being, and social impact. Material choices are more important than ever. It is interesting to reflect on how Enzo Mari believes design and the work that designers do can change the minds of people by simply creating a dialogue, a discussion around an object, thoughtfully designed to be thoughtfully considered.

I felt like Enzo Mari was reminding me again about the role creativity plays in social and economic change, and the role that creativity needs to play more than ever as we look to transform society and the businesses and organisations that serve it to arrive at a better future, a future that considers the substance of the thing, where it comes from, how we use it, and what the implications might be if we perhaps disguise it and hide it beneath thinly veiled aesthetic surfaces.

It is the thing that we build that is the building, but it is the thing inside the building that holds it firm, which is often hidden from view, upon which so much relies. In a way, Enzo Mari is being brutally honest, and creating an aesthetic object out of a material that is finally seen, and unseen, at the same time.

I want to circle back on the design of services I mentioned earlier. How might we explore ‘material’ choices in service design? You could argue the material that we’re designing with is experiences. When we design them well, they result in people improving their financial well-being, they result in people getting better access to medical care, they result in people getting more support and making better more informed decisions, for themselves and the people they care most about. The design that we are doing, the material of that design, is the conversation and the dialogue, and how we shape that conversation, with meaning and with purpose. It’s not often in a singular transaction, but an ongoing series of interactions and events delivered through digital channels, an ongoing conversation cost effectively supported by technology certainly, helping people arrive at choices and decisions that create well-being, sustainability and other forms of purpose. The commercial implication, the commercial objectives must also be met, and we can’t stray too far from the cost, risk, and growth objectives that drive transformation, but I do think there’s something we can learn from Enzo Mari as we think about the role of design.?

I am drawn to consider a kind of radical simplicity, a radical transparency, in the context of design in regulated sectors, design for the services we most urgently need, and need to transform, to arrive at a better future. I think of taking the ‘material’ of that design, and exposing it in the round. How will we use new advances in technology to shape new service experiences? How will ethics and empathy shape the service experiences of the future? How will we help people gain more comfort with how things like GenAI work, and what it means when it works for them?

I think of that black steel fruit bowl sitting on the kitchen counter. I think about the idea that design can inspire a conversation, that design can change the world, that design changes everything. I feel empowered by that, especially when I see a world with so many things we need to change. I think about Enzo Mari, and the optimism at the heart of change. I think about Enzo Mari rolling up his sleeves and turning a piece of steel into a fruit bowl. And I want a bit more Enzo Mari in my mind. I want to role my sleeves up. Complimenti, Enzo Mari. Thank you. I’m going to grab a piece of fruit now. Design changes everything. I’m ready.

The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.