Slow Food
You’ve no doubt heard about the “Slow Food” movement. Originating in the bay area (where else?), it’s come to be the envy and inspiration of “foodies” the world over. And why not? There is much to be gained from taking the time to enjoy one of the most important parts of our physiological existence: eating. I love to cook, and cooking is best when good food becomes a way of thinking, rather than a list of expensive ingredients and complicated instructions. Good food comes when we take the time to be inspired, the time to consider the process, the time to execute the process faithfully, and the time to enjoy the result. Without all of that time, food becomes just one more thing you have to “do” during your busy day.
In this article, I’ll be proposing that product design is on the verge of a similar revolution, and that if we are aware of it and take full advantage of it, a “Slow Design” movement could completely change the way designers think about their craft, and could hopefully even have influence on the way our customers think about the products they are consuming.
A [very] Brief History of Food
Lets look at the history of food for a moment, if only to assist me in making my ultimate point: that product design needs to re-invent itself in much the same way that food has been over the last decade. Food has always been important, in every culture, and every time-period. Everyone needs to eat, and furthermore, everyone has the capacity to enjoy eating. Humans have spent millenia developing complex and intricate methodologies for the creation and subsequent ingestion of foods.
In the mid 20th century, largely as a result of combined effects of the World Wars and women’s rights movements, women–who had been responsible for the cooking in homes for generations–began to leave the home and join the broader workforce. But they did not end up taking jobs from their male counterparts, as was originally feared. Instead, more jobs were created to accommodate the newly available workforce. And this created a problem: because everyone had jobs, no one had time to cook! And because sit-down restaraunts were also time-consuming and expensive, a new industry was born: fast food.
It was a big deal.
The creation of the fast food industry was a bigger cultural shift than one might intuitively realize; fast food is more than just food created fast, it is a whole different way of thinking about the way we feed ourselves. When people cooked at home, recipes were an important part of a family’s cultural tradition. Social relationships were formed around family comfort foods, and lifetimes were spent exploring, substituting, trying, failing, trying again, and succeeding. Prior to fast food, food was an important part of life.
But the message of fast-food is something totally different; it was a hugely important cultural shift: instead of creating food for pleasure, fast-food taught us to think about food as a commodity consumable. Fast-food made us focus on the act of eating, rather than on the process of creating.
I enjoy a Big-Mac as much as the next guy. And far be it from me to denigrate the entire industry of fast, convenient food. There is nothing inherently evil about it, and it is a great service to know that in a pinch I can feed myself enjoyable food at a very low price. But that is now how America–and, increasingly, the rest of the world–used fast food. It was not merely a supplement to an otherwise healthy, enjoyable food life. It became a surrogate for “real” food. “Slow food.”
Riding on the backs of the mainstream organic foods movement and celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver and friends, the “Slow Food” movement is gaining speed rapidly, and cities across the country and around the world are developing rich, culturally-appropriate versions of the same idea. This did not happen overnight. It required a huge cultural shift; a shift away from the commoditization of food as mere belly-filling, and a focus on food as a way of living, a way of thinking.
Slow Design: a new design movement
I’d like to propose the creation of a “Slow Design” movement. We are constantly bombarded with ads and tradeshow booths that claim that they can help us to sketch faster, to prototype faster, to render faster, to create CAD faster, to get to market faster, to make the next product faster… where does all of it lead? It leads to more manufactured ‘stuff’ than ever before possible, with less collective ‘thought’ per design than ever.
Don’t take me the wrong way: the efficiencies that have been gained by our technologically advanced production systems are responsible for our standard of living, and contrary to what some radical environmentalists might imply, has even made our earth much “greener” than it would have been if we were still trying to manufacture things the way we did in the early 20th century! Efficiency is something to be striven for, and I work toward it every day.
However, there is a very important difference between “efficiency” and speed for speed’s sake. Creating new products “faster, faster, faster!” does not automatically lead to greater profits, or even greater revenue. In fact, the only thing it reliably leads to is more products.
Sometimes Speed is Appropriate…
This isn’t always a bad thing. For instance, imagine a company that manufactures custom bobbleheads (no affiliation). It would make sense for this company to develop processes based purely around the rapid design and manufacture of various bobbleheads: the whole point of their industry is speed and agility. The environmental friendliness of creating custom vinyl dolls by the truck load aside, it would at least make logical sense for a company in an industry like this to strive for “faster, faster, faster!” I disagree with the manufacture of non-recyclable “chochkies” like this on general principle, but you get my point: the only benefit provided by this company is its custom manufacturing, which is only viable if it is fast.
But Sometimes it’s Not.
But what about cell phones, computers, stereo systems, shoes, vacuum cleaners, power drills, and tractors? Does it really make sense for these products to be designed and manufactured at such break-neck speeds that there is no time left for real consideration, no time for exploration? No time for curiosity, research, discovery, careful thought, detailed problem-solving and cradle-to-cradle design?
The Fast Food of the Design World: Cell Phones
Cell phones are one of the most egregious examples of design “speed for speed’s sake.” With the current state of phones, I would not be surprised to find that tomorrow’s phones would be made of pressed pulp, and only work for a single-use before breaking down–except that the use of pressed pulp as a material would be far too logical. What happened to the process of Bell Laboratories, who took the time to develop a phone that would be a staple for every office in the world for 40 years, a phone that works as well today as it did when it was first invented, and that in every aspect–except for mobility and text-messaging–is superior to every modern cell phone on the market.
The story of the invention of the telephone–and subsequent quest for its perfection–is nothing short of inspiring. The contrast of the Bell Labs approach with the utter mayhem of today’s market is stark, and saddening. And it is not the fault of designers. Neither is it the fault of engineers, and, believe it or not, it’s not the fault of marketing people either! We are all at fault. Everyone who owns a cell phone has played a part in the creation of this bad-design pandemic, and we are complicit in it simply by our acceptance of it.
A Fast-Food Mentality
Society in America at large has decided that products are best when they are cheap, new, and disposable. Even “green” designers maintain this mentality, by emphasizing the “disposable” aspect of design by focusing on bio-degradable, bio-nutritious, bio-this, and bio-that, rather than on creating products that work, work well, and do so for generations at a time. I do not disparage design for recycling and/or reuse; I am a big proponent for holistic product life-cycle design! But designing an effective product is more than just making the same junky products out of pulp and hemp: it’s about creating products that are appropriate, thoughtful, and effective.
As a designer, this has turned me into something little better than a highly-trained white-collar burger flipper. Yes, I’m “cooking” in some sense, but there is no time or budget for great cooking in a fast food kitchen. A designer’s job today in most companies–consultancies and corporations alike–is to create formulaic design “innovations” as quickly and cheaply as possible. Not all companies work this way, but the temptation is always there, and modern technology has all too often made us faster at the expense of creativity.
The Importance of Tools
Tools inform our design decisions. This is a reality we must all face. To continue the fast food analogy, imagine trying to cook a three course meal in a McDonald’s kitchen. You could do it, but your food is very likely to end up looking and tasting very much like McDonald’s, because the ingredients and the tools available to you were designed for a very specific way of thinking and working: they are designed to make the cook faster, faster, faster. There is no room for creativity in a fast food kitchen, there is only speed.
Similarly, our Sketching, Rendering, Prototyping, and CAD tools inform our design decisions day to day. Since we are working in a fast food kitchen, the results of our efforts will inevitably end up looking and tasting like fast food. Just like the slow food movement moves us forward by bringing us back to basics, we need to re-invent our design tools in a way that brings us back to our roots as designers: we need tools that facilitate thought, rather than tools that try to think for us. Automation and flexibility are almost always mutually-exclusive. As designers we must learn to be proponents of efficiency, but enemies of automation.
We need to expand our kitchens, and we need to make sure that they are filled with good quality, tried and true, general purpose tools that allow for creative exploration, radical changes in direction, and as much flexibility as possible.
Back to Basics, but Without Limits
Sometimes I want to throw my computer at the wall and say “No more! I’m done with CAD forever, from now on I’m doing all of my design with foam core and clay!!” But I am always quickly reminded that even these media are very limited, and that while they allow me flexability in some ways, they also have considerable limitations. Instead, what I should search for is balance. I need a toolset that is balanced between real-world media, 2D sketching, 3D building, 2D CAD, 3D CAD, Rapid Prototyping, Sandpaper, and Bondo. Try to use the simplest possible tool for any particular job. Do not be fooled by those who say that the most efficient possible CAD system is the one that does everything! In many cases the exact opposite is true.
I work fast, I work efficiently. But I often times speed can become an end in itself, and this is where I have to take a step back, take a deep breath, and go sautee some garlic and basil.
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Adam O'Hern is an industrial design consultant specializing in visual brand languages, and has designed products ranging from laptops to power tools, classroom toys to bathroom fixtures, and robots to lint rollers. He has published with 3DWorld Magazine, CGTuts+, and Luxology, and works with Josh Mings of SolidSmack.com on EngineerVsDesigner.com. |
Hi Lisa:
Email me anytime you like! adam at theoherns dot com.
Adam
The convergence of art, design, craft and DIY portend well for Slow Design. When we talk to artists, they all speak of the extreme importance of the source of their work, the individual attention. When we speak to consumers, it is the touch of a real artist that matters. This is so similar to the farmer’s market aspect of the Slow Food movement – that relationship between the maker, the work, the user. I would love to chat more with you about this.
Thanks for the link, ell!
this design movement has existed for a while. have you seen http://www.slowdesign.org ? read their slow + design manifesto; its very inspiring!