Hasta La Ideas

This week marks the launch of Nathan Shedroff’s latest book, Design is the Problem: The Future of Design Must Be Sustainable, published by Rosenfeld Media. The book is a must-read for all designers and businesspeople interested in sustainability and creating value, and Core77 is proud to publish the first excerpt from the book…fittingly, its introduction. Make sure to check out our interview with Nathan Shedroff, where he talks in more depth about the objectives of the book, his thoughts on design and business, and the opportunities for the future.

Also, Core77 readers will receive 15% off the purchase of the book, so read the introduction, read the interview, and then buy the thing for yourself, your staff, your clients, your students, and every other design and businessperson on your giftlist! Enter code CORE77 at the rosenfeldmedia.com site.

Introduction
This isn’t a book about sustainable design. Instead, it’s a book about how the design industry can approach the world in a more sustainable way. Design is interconnected—to engineering, management, production, customer experiences, and to the planet. Discussing and comprehending the relationship between design and sustainability requires a systems perspective to see these relationships clearly.

I hate discussions that start with definitions, but the truth is that the terms “sustainable” and “design” at the beginning of the 21st century are both malleable and subjective enough to warrant an explanation. However, I’ll try to get the definitions out of the way quickly and efficiently to get to the larger discussion.

What is Sustainability
Design is in great transition, thankfully. Traditionally, design has been practiced with a focus on appearance, whether it is represented in graphic, interior, industrial, fashion, furniture, automotive, marine, or any other kind of design. In truth, design has never been merely about appearance, although that’s been the most prominent phenomenon throughout its history. In addition, other disciplines use the word “design” to describe other functions, such as structuring databases, systems, services, or organizations (further confusing its use and meaning). But there have been moments in design’s past where truly great designers showed us that design was also concerned with performance, understanding, communication, emotion, desire, meaning, and humanity itself, even though these haven’t been the most lasting movements.

Ultimately, this is the design that I want to speak about in this book—design that encompasses the synthesis of usefulness, usability, desirability, appropriateness, balance, and systems that lead to better solutions, more opportunities, and better conditions, no matter what the endeavor or domain.

In the end, there is no reason that great design can’t be beautiful and meaningful and sustainable.

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