Interview with Matt Legrand

“I’m Matt Legrand. I'm a product designer who has worked on wearable technology, digital health, automotive interfaces, fashion design, no-code tools, machine learning, and new media publishing. In 2013 I created the short film documentary “Solutionism” that was shown at Cannes Film Festival”

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What is solutionism?

Solutionism is a term for the idea that every problem facing humanity, especially those created by humanity in the first place, can be solved with creativity. This is pronounced in a landscape where people look to conventional tools for effecting change like governments, NGOs, lobby groups, pacs, technology corporations, nonprofits, advertisement, activism, conscious consumerism, and other sociopolitical instruments to deliver solutions to their problems, even as those tools fail to function properly, and even counterproductively. Skeptics of this concept love to point to the failures and deceptions in the cycle of consumer technology: absurd contraptions of the world's fair in the 1900s; google glasses; tyrannical or draconian edgecases in social media platforms. It's important to point out that we are not calling this "technologism". Technology is a tool, and like any other tool, can be used positively or negatively. Once equipped with a hammer, you can choose to hammer a nail, or someone's face. It's absurd to suggest that a technology, like the internet, is intrinsically bad because it's used for profit by silicon valley

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How did you get to work on this topic, what drew you into critical theory of design?

In my early career, i was primarily looking for ways to infuse art into the commercial work that i was being paid for, but i was getting more and more frustrated with the limitations and compromises introduced by working with clients who didn't share this lust for quality and groundbreaking work. In one case i worked on a campaign for a popular brand of disinfectant wipes who was actively working to convince parents that they needed to use their product in order to keep their children healthy when there was clinical evidence to the contrary. This was clearly an example of very effective communication design being misused. I decided that the only way to have the level of agency i wanted as a designer was to work on my own products rather than collaborating with organizations I didn't respect.

Why is it important?

Whether or not a designer makes the same choices i did, the impact they have is powerful and elemental. Designers have the ability to influence human behavior, and do it at scale.

How exactly can design processes be applied to the way we operate as a society?

There are a few different popular frameworks for design problem solving, but in essence, they emulate the scientific method in that they provide steps for identifying and validating hypotheses. I think the most effective versions of this approach ensure that people are at the center of the design process. It also means that every single person can be empowered to work for positive change, because these methods are not so technical that they require any kind of special training, and because everyone is creative.

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What is your opinion on the statement "design can save the world?"

People don't like this one sometimes because they think it's saying that the design industry, or even the tech industry (since that's where most designers are employed), is going to save the world. That's obviously not true, but i would double down and say only design can save the world. Personal and collective responsibility, creativity, and ingenuity have always been the only ways that we've improved our lives, from the very first hominid that learned to create a torch, or any other parable you prefer to use as the first creative act. Most of our problems since that moment have been self-inflicted, many more so than are follow-on problems directly resultant from our creations. It's not like our creations necessarily need to be our own downfall. Clean energy is ready to go whenever.

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Can you give an example of a design that actually have a deeper meaning than product selling?

I think eyeglasses are my favorite example. They primarily exist to help people see better. There are secondary benefits, such as being a fashion accessory. Because we operate in a capitalist system, one of the best mechanisms for delivering these benefits to people are through practical product marketing, manufacturing and supply chain processes, and so on. Because they have existed for a while, they could be viewed as a pure commodity, except that there's room for designers to create new value through experience or modality diversification (contact lenses, retail experiences) or cultural dialogue via form (style, shape, materials, branding, etc). All of this is good, because it becomes an avenue for self-expression, and even art, all while making sure people can see well. You may rightly criticize the (numerous) issues and threats to the planet that exist in the fashion industry, but i don't think anyone would argue we should stop making eyeglasses to solve them.

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You argued for solutionism in 2013, do you think it has spread enough among the designers community to the point it has made a difference?

I didn't invent this idea - Evgeny Morozov, a Belarusian writer and researcher who studies the political and social impact of technology, introduced the concept in his book to save everything, click here. He presented this word as the idea that every social problem has a technological fix. He's right that this is a flawed idea, and I tend to agree that when we can't see technology as anything other than a product or opportunity to harvest value from people, we are fixing problems that don't exist.

We have to break away from this myopic view of wh.a.t a tool is, so that we can stop entertaining anarcho-primitivist or fearful attitudes toward the tool and actively reengage in ways to make the tool work for us. We can also stop depending on technology corporations to solve our problems and getting disappointed when they don't (because it isn't why they exist.).

I don't think the adoption of this philosophy has spread at all. Most designers today work in user experience and digital product design, and i think most designers are more concerned with short term outcomes in more effective entertainment and data capture that drive profit for investors, because that's how they've been tralned.

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How someone who is not a designer can use these concepts to impact their community?

Everyone is a designer whether they call themselves one or not, because everyone is creative. I prefer a very expansive view of what "community" means?; it could be a discord server you're in, a group of close friends, your neighborhood, a group of people with shared experience in your city, or the city itself (which i believe is the highest order unit of community that can exist). But it's up to you to accept personal responsibility for contending with the problems your community faces, because creativity is the most effective tool you have.

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