100% Design – 2012 Predictions

Tim Parry Williams just sent out this link to the ‘100% design’ website. I am interested by Ghislaine Wood’s predictions about the future for design in 2012. This reinforces my own views about the importance of keeping the craft skills we have alive, in worsted weaving for one as well as translating those skills through the innovative use of technology. The website reports:

Ghislaine Wood, V&A, co-curator of British Design 1948 – 2012, Innovation in the Modern Age, 31 March – 12 August 2012.  This exhibition will celebrate the best of British post-war art and design from the 1948 ‘austerity’ Games to the summer of 2012.

“It is a fascinating time for design. Doing the research for the upcoming exhibition, which covers the 64 years between the last Olympic Games and London 2012, it was apparent that there have been several other periods of tension and austerity, and they haven’t necessarily been bad for design. The design community will always respond to change: indeed, it can be a catalyst. In the early 1980s we saw the growth of ‘creative salvage‘, motivated by emerging designers like Tom Dixon and Ron Arad, and there was a great spur to design activity. In the 1970s, the OPEC oil problem led to plastic being not available, which moved designers into hand-making.

I suspect the current move towards crafts and hand-making will continue, reflecting notions of authenticity. The disposable culture is not currently attractive, and I believe that the search for durability will also continue. But while longevity is an issue with some designers, there is also a trend for design to break down barriers, with phenomena like digital technology linking areas like lighting, decoration and communication; for example, with digital wallpaper becoming a domestic installation. This will continue to grow and surprise us. Craft and technology are now finding links, and migrating between each other in a most intriguing way. On the downside, I fear for the future of the British art school system, which has done so much to foster design.”