Design theory

The designers behind the iPhone: conscious change makers or mere chessmen?

A Design Theory Essay

By Ayeshmantha De Alwis, Bao Qian Cheng ,Cindy Chan, Romin Myung and Zarin Tasnim

Table of Content

Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: The iPhone Chapter 3: Theories Chapter 4 Findings Chapter 5: Reviews Chapter 6: Conclusion Chapter 7: Individuals Essays

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Chapter 1: Introduction

The iPhone is a modern classic of industrial design, one can even argue that it is the highest point of success a mass produced product can reach. Not only is it an enormous commercial success, it also opened the door to the smartphone era and the new lifestyle is led. The creative process behind the iPhone has as such became a benchmark for many designers. Are the designers of iPhone aware of making these influences? Have designers intentionally and consciously “designed� the lifestyle changes that iPhone created? Or are they following the social trends and being manipulated as a profit maker serving the business only?

From the case study of iPhone, this essay argues that designers may be playing an active role in making the changes without being conscious of their social influences. It also suggests designers have to remind themselves the influence they have in order to regain this active role in change making, other than solely pursuing an isolated perfect product just as in the creative process of the iPhone. From these arguments this essay aims to seek active ways of responding to the macroscopic social context and new values of our discipline. This essay will first explains the key generations in the evolution of iphone’s design and analyse the creative process of iphone, then it will discuss the design theories related (consumerism/capitalism/globalization/modernization) and elaborate their appropriateness on the iPhone. The essay will be closed by findings and critical views. The design of iPhone may represent a majority of contemporary design approaches of commercial product design, therefore this case study and analysis can be a reference in analysing the impact of product design.

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Chapter 2: The iPhone

The iPhone is a great bravura of Apple. Before the release of the iPhone, Apple had no credibility in the cellphone field. Now the iPhone has become one of the most popular cellphones in the market, since it started a revolution in the design of cellphones.

According to Jony Ive(2004)�We are talking about how you feel about the product, not in a physical sense, but in a perceptual sense.� We consider this as the source and the starting point of the innovation of the iPhone.

Apparently, the biggest difference between the iPhone and other flip phones on the market was the multi-touch screen of the iPhone, and the multi-touch interface brought a brand new kind of interaction between the user and the product at that time. Multitouch is different from Touch, users can swipe to turn a page like a book or use two fingers to zoom in and zoom out rather than click a rigid button to make a specific operation. This new control system made users feel the cellphone became alive and could communicate with them. This intimate tactile nature reflects what Jony Ive emphasizes: a creative perceptual sense above the physical sense. In addition, combined with other interface design of the iPhone, this new way of control makes the smartphone much smarter, and much easier to use.

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Steve Jobs claims that iPhone is much smarter and much easier to use (2007)

Other than the multi-control interface, the appearance is another creation of iPhone. Affected by the Japanese simplistic design language, the design team reached an agreement that nothing should detract from the multi-touch screen (Leander Kahney,2014), the concept of the screen is named as “the infinity pool�. In the final product, the iPhone only simply consists of a glass screen and the home button from the front view, successfully get rid of all those plastic buttons, so the user will only focus on the screen. This provides a perfect platform for the multi-touch control system and other interface.

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Steve Jobs complains on the normal phones buttons (2007)

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the first iPhone (2007)

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In 2007, when Steve Jobs launched the iPhone, he said Apple reinvented mobile phones. We consider this as a nice summary of the design, iPhone did change the mobile phone industry visually and functionally.

After releasing the first iPhone in 2007, the design of Apple is keeping working towards the same goal: magical and surprising.

However, the concept of the “infinity pool” is keeping updating with new technologies, Iphone’s screen is becoming bigger and the body is becoming thinner, but we still think the first iPhone as the real and only innovative revolution.

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Chapter 3: Theories

There are several different theories and methods that can be used to analyse the iPhone and its impact and influence in the the world and culture itself. For example one theory that can be used is the one about consumerism and the consumerist life. The main basis for this theory that will be focused on is the ever blurring line between ‘desire’ and ‘need’(Stearns, 2006). In the modern consumerist world there is always a need for products or items, however a consumer’s desire is now mixing into this ‘need’ and is creating a new need that is far larger and more extravagant than what was initially needed. The reasons for these desires can be because of social status, personal preference, peer pressure or even lust for what is new(Bauman, 2017), however these are now mixing in with needs of consumers and driving the consumerist lifestyle in this modern age. How this can relate to the example of the iPhone is that the need the consumer has in the 21st century is to have a mobile phone that enables them to be constantly able to communicate, however this can just be done with a basic mobile device or a basic smartphone. However through the design of current smartphones such as the iPhone they have created a cult in which people desire these new expensive phones with many features when actually all they ‘need’ is a basic mobile phone with a call feature. Through their marketing and designing, Apple have been able to create a culture where consumers feel the need to buy their products(Pfeifer, 2017), whether it is to stay ‘modern’ or they feel that this product is what they need to survive in the world.

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Another theory that is focused on is modernization and how that has affected the success of the iPhone and for the company Apple.

The world is constantly developing and changing and companies such as Apple and the iPhone are the ones that are driving this change. Take for example the release of the first iPhone, it was a revolutionary product that had never been created before and it changed the market for smart phones in the world.

However since then modernization as encapsulated the idea of a smartphone (Vella, 2013) to the point that all large companies are releasing smartphones as well, making the iPhone no longer an innovator in the market. However what Apple and the iPhone have been able to do was retain the consumer base they had from the innovative first few products through constant releasing of new products with excellent marketing to make the user feel that they are buying a product that they want. They have been able to create a cult like following in this modern world which has enabled them to not only stay afloat in the market but dominate the market in a way that has never been seen before.

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Chapter 4: Findings

Apple’s iPhone has an enormous influence in people’s lifestyle and it is one of the key examples of how much a product can be fetished as a commodity. Causing a culture phenomenon-fetishism, growing number of people think it is a must fashion trend to use apple products especially the iPhone. This also sets as a perfect example of how the impact of globalization and modernization have on product design. Take iPhone 6 supply chain for example.

Its production consists of design and development, sourcing, manufacturing and assembly, warehousing and distribution. This supply chain links different countries around the world leading to a worldwide cooperation in the creation of the iPhone 6.

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Although the iPhone is designed in the United States, it uses outsourcing strategy to produce different parts of the products in different countries where it favors the company a large amount of cheap labor and high profit. This helps them find more efficient and cheap forms of production. Countries involved include China, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, etc. China having the most number of suppliers’ accounts for its availability of lower cost facilities. For Apple, the core of capitalism in fact is exploiting workers to maximize profits (Croteau et al., 2011).

Designers on the other hand, can be very much focused on the use of value and developing the perfect product while overlooking its social impact. As such, they unconsciously manipulate the consumer. Its effect causes consumers to blindly pursue for a product that is unreasonably overpriced. The product is produced in such a way that creates a hype for their target market. Their 18

consumers not only want it but need it in their minds. That mentality still exists today for all the newer versions of the iPhone . Even if it is not that much different to previous versions of the iPhone or even if Apple’s competitors have a better product on the market, consumers will still want to need to buy it to keep up with the apple obsession trend with the latest technology. Apple’s slogan “Think Different” does not seem to apply to their phones in the last half a decade. Nothing is different about their phones with all their competitors such as Samsung that even produces waterproof mobile phones. The designers basically do not care about providing the public something innovative. They care about giving them something ‘new’ which is exactly what the public wants. Furthermore, It is often reported in the media that people sell their body apparatuses such as their kidneys to buy an iPhone (BBC News, 2011). Foxconn sweat shop on the other hand exploits over-worked and stressed employees and only pays them 1.12 euro per hour to produce iPhones (Mail Online, 2017).

Besides such a social controversy, it also negatively impacts the environment due to the carbon-footprint from its’ global supply chain. New versions of the iPhone are churned out every year.

They don’t have anything new within the smartphone market that isn’t revolutionary or innovative. Apple in fact plans the obsolescence of all their products, making their products like the iPhone last for only a few years before malfunctioning. This is one of their strategies to keep forcing their consumers to buy their products every now and then. As iPhone are designed to be replaced by the next version of the iPhone in a year or so, this creates a major problem regarding waste. They sell millions of units for every generation of iPhone which creates millions of wastes for just each generation of iPhone . Therefore, ever increasing amount of carbon dioxide emission to the atmosphere every year adds onto the global warming effect. Thus, worsening the world’s climate condition.

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Chapter 5: Reviews

Designers around the world, not just within Apple hold a powerful tool that most aren’t aware of. They can set the trends, they can change what the public wants, which would make the next market movement and enormous economical and environmental impact.Yet, most chose to sit in the comfort zone of design, where they do not try to revolt the trends, they just make perfectly functioning products. Of course, If done correctly a company can easily create a new trend reshaping how the public views and expects a product to be, a perfect example of this is Apple’s original iPhone. They single handedly changed how the world sees smartphones, and any design that wasn’t similar, was considered not trendy and old. From that point, the majority of smartphones all had a base design similar to the iPhone; It was a landmark in phone design. Apple had set the trend and made a new standard for phones, but not they are following trends. However, with the success of the iPhone and other Apple products, the company slowly started to care less and less about creating something innovative that would influence and change the public’s perception of a product, and started only to fulfill the company’s desire on profit making and market dominance. The designers at Apple might not have realised the power of their influence when designing the original iPhone, but they clearly know of it now. With the success of the first iPhone, people desired their products just for it’s brand name, and the brand started making use of it by planned obsolescence. The company’s recent products take advantage of the trend that they set by providing their customers nothing new but just slight change in form and updated specifications, knowing that they will still sell just as well.

Designers should be creating to the public’s wants, needs, and more.Yet in Apple’s case, currently they just do what is expected by the public and also the brand as a business. In this case, we may come to the conclusion that designers have become a simple gear 21

in fulfilling the machine of globalization and capitalism. However, Designers should not be slaves of the public desire and business needs, they should stop acting like they are, they should be more aware of the social-cultural influence they lead in a macroscopic context and take these into account to define a new “better” for the public. To make something “better”, designers must know and understand the public’s real and genuine needs, and must design around it. But as any person that cares about another person knows, people don’t always know what they want, and they will never know if they want something that is new or unexpected.

Designers have to know what the public wants and needs, even if they don’t know themselves. To create something new that is “better”, designers have to design to the public’s needs as well as providing the unexpected. Even if designers create something new that is “better’, it has a chance to alienate its customers due to the changes, which could in hand make the product unsuccessful.

But that is a chance that designers should take in order to make something “better”; nothing “better” will exist within the comfort zone of the public, risks must be taken to create a new “better” product that could in turn start a new trend. Designers might even take risk to be scandalised as innovative solution can be disruptive to the original privileged. The original iPhone was a massive risk, and yet, Apple still took that risk, and ended up changing the world’s ideals of a smartphone.

Apple’s design approach seems to have changed greatly from the design attitude of the original iPhone; in the past they cared about innovating, but now they just provide the standard. Apple seems to be focussed more on making money and not focused on delivering innovative products anymore. Designers need to earn money, but that should not be the main drive force in their work, or their work will be uninspiring, and lacking; much like Apple’s most recent iPhone X, which doesn’t add anything innovative within its market. Designers are human beings with limitless 22

creativity, the way Apple designs their iPhones now, might as well be designed by machines that just provide standard products that will just satisfy their customers but not surprise them.

Especially with recent development of artificial intelligence, which is starting to handle creative work such as graphic layout design. If designers still treat delivering the product with the best technical specifications and performance as their sole value, design may soon be the next industry replaced by an AI. In defining the new better, perhaps the next competence of designers, which may set themselves different from creative machines, maybe bringing the sensibility to humanistic values to make products alive. These humanistic value, such as sustainability or community cultural value, can be a new definition of “better�, apart from just commercial value. In order to advocate these new values designers may need to take collective effort, for instance forming movements or industry associations so that the case would no longer be capitalist market manipulating the designers but vice vers

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Chapter 6: Conclusion

In conclusion, this essay argues if designers stay in their comfort zone of designing only the form or function of objects, but not being aware of the influence Design has in a wider social-cultural context and take the active role to be a changemaker of that, they may be merely a chessmen in the trend of consumerism and capitalism. Just like in the case of Apple’s Design of the iPhone where designers just became money making machine. This essay has looked at the innovation at the beginning of iPhone’s story and the unsurprising evolution of the iPhone that follows.

With elaboration on consumerism and modernist theories, the essay gives findings that Apple have been a great successor from consumerism gaining enormous revenue but exploiting labour and creating negative environmental impact. It is also found that designers are accountable of these impact because they are the minds behind the brand’s strategy of planned obsolescence. The essay critically reviewed this phenomenon and arrived to the conclusion that designers of the recent Apple product are acting as slaves of consumerism and business profit. The essay argues that designers should advocate humanistic values that address public needs, apart from blindly following trends of consumerism.

Apple’s success story of iPhone is a reference to many design industry practitioners till now, and it represent the ideal story of innovation. In turning this story to a new page, designers of Apple should no longer only take advantage of the brand image set by its original innovation but proceed to fulfill new needs of the fast changing world. Same as designers in general, we should no more stay as a gear of consumerism, to find new values of our industry we need to define the next definition of a better designed world through addressing the needs of mankinds, not a business’s desire on profit.

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Bibliography

Bauman, Z. (2010). 44 letters from the liquid modern world. Polity.

BBC News. (2017). Chinese teen ‘sells kidney for iPad’. [online] Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asiapacific-13647438/chinese-teenager-sells-kidney-to-buy-ipad-andiphone Croteau, D., & Noynes, W., & Milan, S. (2011). Media society: Industries, images, and audiences (4th Edition).Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2012.

Steve Jobs - iPhone Introduction in 2007 (2007) iNickionelhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hUIxyE2Ns8&t=747s Kahney, L. (2014). Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products. Penguin.

Mail Online. (2017). Inside Apple’s Chinese ‘sweatshop’ factory where workers are paid just £1.12 per hour to produce iPhones and iPads for the West. [online] Available at: http://www.dailymail. co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Inside-Apples-Chinesesweatshop-factory-workers-paid-just-1-12-hour.html Pfeifer, G. (2017). The Question of Capitalist Desire: Deleuze and Guattari with Marx.

Stearns, P. N. (2006). Consumerism in world history: The global transformation of desire. Routledge 27

Chapter 7: Individual Essays

Ayeshmantha De Alwis 15047949D There were many different topics and theories that were covered in the lectures over the past semester in relation to design and I found several of them interesting and relevant to product design.

So much so that I decided to write my part of the group essay about one of the main theories and ideas of consumerism and how that effects product design. For example some of these main theories and topics are about culture and how the learning of culture can effect design and change/develop my perspective as a designer. In this essay I will be reflecting on these two topics and processing what my thoughts are on these topics and how they relate to product design.

One of the main theories that we learnt about what culture and how it can relate to design. The main idea that was focused on was that culture is something that is learnt and unlearnt, so it is constantly developing and changing. This was something that I understood already but had never transferred this knowledge to relate it to product design. The point that stood out can be summarised as: Culture is something that is acquired and learnt over time so everyone has the capability to develop it. I was able to relate this to product design and the ability to build a culture for a brand or product. As a designer I can focus more on developing the culture of my product or brand so that it becomes a norm and increasingly popular. Typically as a designer I tend to focus on the functionality of my product and how it works and pay very little attention to the image that it portrays and the culture that it has. Now that I know that I can help people learn the culture of my products and designs as well as help them develop it so that my product becomes popular I can pay a lot more attention to this aspect as it can help make my decent products become even better.

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Another main theory that was discussed and that I found interesting was the importance of communication within design.

There always is two way communication in design between both the designer/artist and the consumer. Typically as a designer we tend to focus a lot of our attention to the communication we directly have with the consumer, understanding what they want from the product, this being typically done through surveys or interviews. However through the lecture and the tutorial session on this topic I was able to better understand another form of communication in design and that was the communication that the design itself has with the consumer. For example what does the product itself reflect or show to the consumer and what image does it portray. This type of communication is very important in the product designfield as typically the designer isn’t always there to do the communicating for the product and they are not there to sell the product to the consumer. So this puts a lot more emphasis on the product and what it communicates to the consumer as this can change whether they want to buy the product or not. What I learnt from this was that there can be many different interpretations of creative works such as products and I as a designer should focus more on the possible interpretations that my product has to the user so that I can ensure that it is reflecting and communicating what I want it to.

Finally the theory of consumerism is one that stuck out to me and make the biggest impact. The idea was that consumerism is a rapidly growing culture world wide to the idea of status coming from products that you buy as well as the need to stay up to date with trends and what is popular. As well as this there was the idea that desire now heavily effects the ‘needs’ that the consumer have thus effecting what they consume as their desires take control and are never satisfied. This was interesting to me as a designer as it made me think about how I as a designer would be able to design in this type of culture and be able to be successful.

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For example there is the struggle of the designer wanting to be original and steer away from the trends or what is popular however it is not profitable because it is not what the consumers want as such because they follow trends. So as a designer should we be giving into the idea of consumerism and follow the trends ourselves? this was something that I was thinking about because how can one be truly original with designs if they are conforming to a consumerist world. A designer will just be designing to fulfil the desire of the consumerist world as opposed to seeing the design as a way to express themselves. Personally I want to become a designer that is able to design their own personal products that people want, I am not specifically designing for the masses and consumerist world but instead designing for the individual as they want my style and culture of design. This however is a very idealistic way of thinking as it opposes what the trends are and what is seen as financially stable in the design world.

In conclusion I feel that the theories that I have learnt during this course and in the lectures have really enabled me to gain a deeper insight into what it is to be a designer and how I can develop as a designer not just in practical skills but also in creative thinking and relating to the real world. I was able to understand what it means to be a designer in the 21st century and the struggles that we are faced with when trying to become designers. This is something that I will have to focus on and make decisions on to really understand how I want to place myself in the future and what my vision and dream as a designer is. It can longer be idealistic and just that ‘I want to design innovative products’.

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Bao Qiancheng, 15102671D In this semester, our lectures are introduced by teachers from different departments, and I think this is the biggest difference compared to previous semesters. Mr. Kam Fai gave us lots of very detailed introduction as well as his insights on the theories. This is quite interesting for me to learn these knowledges from an EID teacher, this can help me to development another perspective of thinking.

On week 9, the lecture of “the Society of Consumers—Modernity and Design III”, Kam Fai mentioned that many cities such as Hong Kong and New York is very flexible, that means these international big cities can be easily demolished or replaced, However, he thinks Paris is different from these cities because the construction of Paris didn’t change much in the last decades, it remains what it was.

I was quite astonished when Kam Fai shared this opinion. I have been studying in Hong Kong for about two and a half years, I considered Hong Kong as a quite unique city because of its high population destination, meticulously arranged transportation system and places that frequently posted or recommended by those “online celebrities” (For instance, Choi Hung). However, later, the concept of Junkspace were introduced, which changed my idea to some extent. According to Foster (2013) “(Junkspace) is an effect of the continual transformation of space according to the accelerated temporality of consumption, not to mention the projected temporality of speculation”. The concept of Junkspace reminds me of my experiences in different cities, it seems that every time when I want to hang out with my friends, the options are always limited within shopping malls, restaurants or cinemas.

No matter which city we are. It seems the function of the citie are mainly focused on consumption, and more and more city spaces are constructed based on consumption purpose.

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I come from Wenzhou, a city in the mainland China. 5 years ago, Wenzhou had several regions waited to be rebuilt, most of them were supposed to become centers of creative industry, however, when I went back home last year, most of these places became fantastic nightclubs or restaurants. Because the investors want to make more money. Eventually, Wenzhou change from a typical waterside city to a city occupied by Junkspace but without personality.

Now I understand that whether a city can be replaced or not depends whether the city has a unique soul, the construction and function other than simply capital consumption.

Not only cities, our products are getting more and more similar as well, these phenomenon relates to another topic we’ve discussed this semester: Globalization.

For instance, everyone in this world can buy an iPhone from the local Apple store, Apple’s design center is in the USA, but some of their designers are from different countries, what’s more, Apple set large amounts of factories in Asia. Because Apple is able to use resources all over the world, the company is operating worldwidely in order to spend the lowest cost to gain the highest profit. BBC (2014) reported a scandle in China, Apple’s workers were poorly treated. Some classmates think these low-income workers become the victims of globalization, and Apple is selfish when trying to make the company more popular and richer. I watched the movie Steve Jobs and read some parts of the Steve Jobs and Jony Ive after this tutorial. I found that even though Jobs has intense marketing strategies and intention, He and Jony Ive’s original motivation is to make the best product for people. When I started to think why people love Apple, I associated the reason with a concept I learned from another subject: the Looking Glass Self model. It means that people identify themselves by what they think others think they are, and people buy things to fit the selfimage they hope others think they are. In 2007, iPhone was the 33

most innovative product on the market, many people might want to buy iPhone to identify themselves. However, too many people are using iPhone now, and other smartphones on the market also have the big multi-touch screen just like iPhone, then where is the unique self-identification? It seems our self-identifications are also globalized with the globalization of cities, products, information, culture, etc.

So, I think nowadays designers can try to create new cultures and new self-identifications for people, or design to help people to find their self-images. As introduced in week 4’s lecture about culture and creativity, “we interpret sensory information according to certain rules” (Williams,2001). We can try to gain new sensory information as well as find new ways to express the experiences we gained to make a creative design. Let us take Vibram Furoshiki Shoes as an example, the shoe brings a brandnew shoe structure and provides users with a new experience of wearing shoes, since these new features improved some functions of shoes, we can consider it as an appropriate creativity.

From this situation, since I can not change the globalization individually, I prefer to be designers like Steve Jobs and Jony Ive, try my best to bring creative products as well as bring people with new meaningful experience for the first stage, and maybe one day these creativities can slightly change our selfidentification, our viewpoints or even our culture.

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Vibram Furoshiki Shoes References Koolhaas, R., & Foster, H. (2013). Junkspace with Running Room.

London: Notting Hill Editions.

Bilton, R. (2014, Dec. & jan.). Apple ‘failing to protect Chinese factory workers’. BBC Panorama. Retrieved from http://www.bbc. com/news/business-30532463 Williams, R. (2001). The long revolution (Vol. 1253). Broadview Press.

Vibram Furoshiki Shoes Wrap Around your Feet for the Best Fit https://www.pinterest.com/pin/821625525739456425/ 35

Cindy Chan Ho Yee 15011303d The Design Theory class has been a fruitful learning for me in acquiring various design theories and critically reflecting on them during the lesson. This personal essay will reflect on the learning experience and evaluate on my personal path and approach on Design as learning and as my future career. Personally I found the learning process very useful in developing my views and value of design.

The drafting of group essay about the iPhone led to many interesting discussion between my group on design and theories.

The iPhone has been a very relevant example in design theories related to consumerism and modernism. In consumerism and capitalism, objects are commoditized, according to Marx(1867), commodities are purchased upon their trade value but not use value. This theory is extremely relevant to iPhone, as the product has become one of the most popular object for reselling. The people who resell iPhone maynot be an iPhone user in many cases, but rather, they gain profit from reselling the iPhone, as such none of these buyers of iPhone are purchasing the use value of the iPhone. Another consumerism theory that iPhone well illustrated is planned obsolescent. Apple Inc. has been creating new versions of iPhone almost annually in recent years. By changing the form language from round to the sandwich design and back to the recent round edge shape, the old versions of design looks out of date.Besides, as Apple changed the electrical wire adaptor, from“lightning� in iPhone 6 to USB type C, the older versions phone will be incompatible to other Apple product and as such forced to fade out. This is an example of artificial limited use life and planned obsolescence is a strategy to drive sales (Bulow, 1986).

As the iPhone is such a significant example of these consumerist 36

theories, our group leads a discussion whether Apple will still survive without following these game rules of commoditization and planned obsolescence. It leads to a sad conclusion that if Apple does not follow the trend, another brand that follows the trends of capitalism might replace its market share. For example, Apple products’ trade value has been declining as the company lose its market share and brand value (Randewich,2017) with other brands that change their versions even faster with more updated specifications,for instance brands like Samsung. Therefore it may be possible that no matter a designer is consciously making the design decision or not, only those who follow the games rules of capitalism would survive in the market. Thus, the negative consequence of capitalism and consumerism, for example sustainability issues and human rights problem of sweatshops, would exist regardless to the Design decision of individual designers. This may propose a decline of influence and impact of product design if we do not reconsider the disciplines’ future roles and value.

In search of product design’s future roles and values, one must know the current drivers behind the discipline, and many of them are covered by the theories taught in lectures. The first driver is globalization and localisation, in its theory, the powerful and wealthy ones become tourists that freely wanders between being global and or consuming local values whereas the vegabonds have no choice but to be manipulated(Bauman, 1996). To apply this theory into the field of product design, the freedom of tourists can be defined as power of consumption, thus the person who can have more choice in purchasing products are considered the powerful upper class. The second driver is modernisation, it was almost the origin of industrial product design (Smith,1993), as the majority of product design are enabled by mass production and standardisation. A modernist design approach, as mentioned in lecture, is pursuing perfection in functions and performance, 37

which can be isolated from the social context of the design. As I observe this isolated Design approach still exists among many designers and also our classmates. The third driver is the internet and information Age. The internet have brought the world closer that products can be crowdsourced online instead so of funded through traditional models. In this information era, production details (e.g. material source, fair trading facts) has not been more transparent than before. As such ethical consumerism can be archived easier and thus propose new product value. These drivers may imply that other than catering consumerism designer might be able to invent new game rule as we rethink our role.

In my point of view, the future roles of product designer is much more collaborative than isolated, and play more active role in driving social changes..The first possible role can be product designers as co-designers. This new breed of designer are not only able to design perfect product in an isolated manner but also able to lead an codesign approach in an interdisciplinary manner (Sanders and Stappers,2008). Many cross-discipline Design cases have achieved social and commercial success widely, therefore defining new competence of product designer. The second possible new genre of Product Designers are as social dreamers, who are much conscious of the social influence of artifacts and even speculative ones. These designers may create fictional objects that enable the public to picture new possible future collectively. (Dunne and Raby,2013) The social dreaming it leads can be the first step of turning the speculation to reality. The third possibility are product designers as facilitators in participatory Design. Traditional product designer master various design methods but in the future we may also need to facilitate these design method collectively. As designers collaborate as more disciplines, they may need not only to codesign but also lead and drive mass creativity especially in tackling wicked problems with complex social context and network of stakeholders.

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Of course, there can be more drivers and possible way out of the product design disciplines and in fact the more diversive future of this industry means more future survival models of us the product design student. In view of the present and the possible future, I sincerely hope that I can be able to find a way to survive with a balance between my individual wish on creating meaningful yet pleasing design as well as a wider interest on the industry future and the public good.

Bibliography Bauman, Z. (1996). Tourists and vagabonds: Heroes and victims of postmodernity.

Bulow, J. (1986). An economic theory of planned obsolescence.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 101(4), 729-749.

Dunne, A., & Raby, F. (2013). Speculative everything: design, fiction, and social dreaming. MIT Press.

Marx, K. (1867). Capital, volume I. Randewich, N. (2017, June 15). Wall Street technology share selloff leaves Apple bruised. Retrieved December 05, 2017, from https:// www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-stocks/wall-street-technologyshare-selloff-leaves-apple-bruised-idUSKBN1962ES Sanders, E. B. N., & Stappers, P. J. (2008). Co-creation and the new landscapes of design. Co-design, 4(1), 5-18.

Smith, T. (1993). Making the modern: Industry, art, and design in America. University of Chicago Press.

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Romin Myung 15048076D Apple is one of the biggest technological companies in the world, which has over 492 stores across 19 different countries; and with the size and global prominence, brings a power, a power that many desire, global influence. Apple can influence global change through the decisions and designs of their products, as they did for the original iPhone, but lately seem to not set the trends and change the norms, but abide by the norms. Has Apple stopped caring about their products, and started caring more about money? This is what will be focused on within this personal essay with the help of the theories we learnt of in the lectures.

The first iPhone revolutionised how the world saw phones, so much that it changed the ideal form and design of a smartphone forever; as the iPhone was born, flip phones and PDAs died. Apple influenced how we think and expect phones to be, they set that trend and made others follow whether they wanted to or not.

Years later Apple releases the iPhone X, nothing particularly new within the market, nothing special, just standard. This design attitude is completely different from the first iPhone, Apple’s slogan “Think Different” does not seem to apply to their phones in the last half a decade. Nothing is innovative about their phones with all their competition. Apple has fallen from the trend makers, to trend followers. One theory discussed within our lectures was that cultures can affect design, and that is displayed perfectly by Apple’s change in its design attitude. My group mates believe that Apple has become a simple slave of the public, and I agree, but I understand why Apple has chosen to be more standard in recent years.

People are stubborn, difficult to please and understand, half of the time they do not know what they want until they have it; which can make designer’s jobs difficult. People don’t like change 40

once, they are comfortable with what they have, even if there are flaws; if Apple starts being different and trying drastically different things to their competitors, there is a large chance that they will not succeed due to alienation to what the public is used to and comfortable with. The public wants standard, they public does not want different. This brings forth the possibility that we as designers are trapped creating things that are standard and not different to succeed the most, and if we try something new and different, we won’t succeed. Apple used to set the trends within different cultures, but now they are forced to follow the cultures to succeed.

Apple succeeds with its standardised products, and is still adored worldwide. Apple’s products have become just a symbol and icon of wealth, a status icon that cements whether the user is a modern person or not. The theory of consumerism is also shown perfectly by Apple. People want Apple products so much that they became a need in their lives, and without the newest product they don’t feel satisfied, even if the product is no different than anything else on the market. If a person sees two separate phones with the same technological specifications while one being an iPhone, and the other being a lesser known brand but cheaper, they would automatically want the iPhone more because of the brand image Apple has. They would rather spend more just to have what the majority wants and sees as good.

If a once creative and innovative company has fallen like this, what hope is there for future designers like us? This possibility is rather depressing, this seems to be a dark period of design; but this standardisation of product in the market won’t last forever, for people are also easily succumbed to boredom, and with boredom a new boom of creativity can happen to satisfy that boredom. I personally hope that that will happen in the next few years, 41

In conclusion, I understand the reason why companies like Apple who were once innovative, have started to become standardised just to satisfy the public wants and needs, but designers are not slaves of the public, they should stop acting like they are. They need the public’s opinions and attention, but as any person that cares about another person knows, people don’t always know what they want, and they will never know if they want something that is new or unexpected. As designers we need to obviously consider the monetary side to our jobs, but we need to put our products creativity and use above all else. Designers should take the risks, and should not just be standard. I won’t ever let myself fall and let the products I create just become standard.

References Dunn, J. (2017, February 07). Here’s how Apple’s retail business spreads across the world. Retrieved December 05, 2017, from http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-stores-how-many-aroundworld-chart-2017-2 42

Zarin Tasnim 17044146D The design theory class had a number of very interesting topics covered which provided me with more understandings about the culture of design around the world. I found the length of the lectures very appropriate as they were able to deliver a good amount of information within a short period of time. In this personal essay of mine, I’m going reflect what I have learnt throughout the lectures and how it has or will help me with my design career.

I always thought women were always beautiful in their own ways. In general, not only would men envy the appearance of a beautiful woman but also women themselves would envy other women when they find them beautiful. Despite of being a female, I have always checked out other beautiful females on the streets thinking how beautiful they were or just to appreciate. However, I never knew women were objectified or are objects of gaze until I came across the first lecture. It is understandable why is it so as people by nature appreciate beautiful things and I personally feel women are one of the most beautiful living beings alive. They are presented nude in many paintings to show their beauty or what makes a woman beautiful. One very important thing that I learnt is the difference between nude and naked. The term “Naked” would be more like an insult while “Nude” has no negative intention but just a way to describe.

Another interesting thing that I learnt is that we express ideologies through consumption of goods that convey meanings.

During our tutorial, we had group activities where looked at the objects we have in our bags and analyze and group those objects into different categories. For the objects found in my bad such as wallet, water bottle, laptop, keychain, etc mostly fell into the male category due to their dark colors and rough appearance 43

which signifies as a males preferred objects. Through this activity I realized that I have a more male like taste in preference of objects that I like to keep with me. Another interesting topic I found is how some objects are imaginative and creative. Such as how a chair can be turned into something more useful such as a bed.

This inspires me to think how objects around us can be used in multiple ways or how they can be improved for better usage.

However, what I found most useful from this subject is working on our group project. We chose to talk about the iphone generations with a good in-depth research. Each of our groupmates had a different part to talk about but we all had to discuss together and read each other’s work in order to relate to each other and keep the consistency. This encouraged us to read more and also learn more through reading each other’s part regarding the iphones design culture. We wrote about the importance of the chosen design, how design theories are used in the study of iphone and its’ influence, how it is effecting globalization and also negatively impacting on the world climate. Not only that but it also encouraged us to explore and learn more about the design culture of the iphone through the internet. This group project proved to be a great teamwork where we helped each other to complete it on time. As Iphone now is one of the most influential products in the world, it’s very important that we know its base and how it has or is impacting the world. Although I’m not an iphone fan, I’m glad to have learnt more about it and have seen and understood the perspective of those iphone users and how they see it as a part of their life from the outer side. I personally don’t follow the trend of a fashion or technology, but I only follow what pleases me in the sense of making me feel good about it. No matter what the trend might be it does not necessarily mean I would like it.

Therefore, I like to follow my own taste regardless of the trend that the world is trying to follow.

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The End

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2017 Semester One