One Week About Graphic Design by graphic designer Joost Overbeek
One of the best, most inspiring products is the useless machine. Quite old already. I’m sure you know it. I find the one by Lego the best. Unbelievably good present for kids! There are plenty of ‘pretty’ things. Too many, actually. Another lamp, again a sofa, chairs or curtains. I don’t need them. It seems to me that this is also a dead-end street for designers. What design can do? Feel free to say it, but, but if designers really want to do something, they should stop making more of the same stuff. Let us then design things that make the world a bit more enjoyable. Like some kinds of music, movies or nature. Or ugly things; at least people won’t buy so many of them which will at least make a difference in the amount of rubbish and hassle and such.
Let me give you an example: Years ago, I made ‘wellus/nietus’ (oh yes it is, oh no, it isn’t); you can play with it for hours (almost as long as with the useless machine). In the studio, it falls under the denominator ‘nonsense’ – generally the best work. Work that is good without selling something or trying to tell you something. Good reasons for making things are hardly ever ‘selling better’ or ‘more visitors’, but the sheer fun the users have with them. The young viewers, certainly, but you yourself, too!
