Coburger Designtage: “Function Is an Excuse”
Last weekend I had the opportunity to visit the “19th Coburger Designtage” (May 15-20, Coburg). I neither have enough health (still feeling “medium great”), nor time, nor pictures to write a full report, but I want to share two things I noted. Questionable things, right.
Figure: “Coburger Designtage” claim.
The first thing is an installation of some claims or slogans or whatever, including the following: Function is an excuse.
I find that claim “remarkable” since it’s the last thing I expect to hear from almost professional (product) designers. I find it “unwise”. Not only due to my understanding of art and design, but rather due to the lack of function and purpose in too many objects.
Probably we cannot discuss this claim here as long as we don’t know its intention. Too bad, but I couldn’t talk to the people who thought of this “provocative” slogan. It would have been nice, but, well.
Figure: Function is an excuse.
The other thing is a drawing of a charger that holds three batteries and indicates its status only via one LED in either red or green. Again, I didn’t talk to anyone about this, so it’s probably a copy of an existing device or just a joke. I don’t know. However, that charger is not only unrealistic (at least in Germany, every charger appears to manage two, four, or eight batteries), it also means bad design when thinking about color blindness. The designer just managed to hide the charger status from most trichromats, about 7-8 % of the population.
Figure: Draft of a charger, optimized for colorblinds.
Right, that little report sounds negative again, but what. Okay, there were also interesting approaches towards good design.
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Comments
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On May 28, 2007, 2:36 CEST, Dan Johnson said:
Hope you’re feeling better, Jens. So, they think “function is an excuse”? They never heard the phrase “form follows function”? If you’re designing something to be used (as opposed to just art for art’s sake) then function should be your primary motivator. It isn’t just “an excuse.”
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On June 3, 2007, 20:24 CEST, Jens Meiert said:
Hi Dan, that’s absolutely right – heard this way, it’s pretty dumb talk … (And thanks, I’m fine, especially now just coming back from vacation!)
