In April of 2007 fifty members of the global design community responded to Bruce Nussbaum’s “Are Designers the Enemy of Design?” campaign that he launched by making a provocative speech to students at a design school and then stipulating that the design community should respond by “dialoguing” with him in the context of his Business Week blog. The “Enemies” campaign marked the end of an era, and a turning point in the design communities rising awareness of competing forces shaping next design, its growth and the complexities involved in it’s transformation beyond Design 2.0.
Beautiful Diversion presented a multitude of perspectives from a diversity of design community members in fourteen countries. Interest in Beautiful Diversion continues. More than five thousand people have downloaded the Special Issue since it was first published.
Contributors to the SPECIAL ISSUE: Sir George Cox, Tony Fry, John Thackara, Elizabeth Pastor, Anne-Marie Willis, Tim Brown, GK VanPatter, Neal Moore, Geoff Crook, George Kembel, Ellen Lupton, Thomas Noller, Mark Breitenberg, Kristian Bengtsson, Gill Wildman, Cameron Tonkinwise, Gunnar Swanson, MP Ranjan, Uday Dandavate, Richard Buchanan, William Tate, Paul J. Nini, Martin Mangold, Peter Schreck, Nate Burgos, Jaime Barrett, Birgit H. Jevnaker, Jean Schneider, Thomas S. Bley, Michelle Siegel, Chris Arnold, Dan Roam, Adam Kallish, Stefan Holmlid, Hans Kaspar Hugentobler, Alun Price, Nicola Morelli, Shelley Evenson, William Tschumy, Zachary Jean Paradis, Brett Patching, Leslie Alfin, Tiiu Poldma, Loretta Staples, Jørgen Rasmussen, Claire Hartten, Michael Erlhoff, Eric Niu, Alex Cheek, David Sless, Christopher Vice.
Inside:
“Nussbaum reminds me of one of my grandmother’s favourite sayings – ‘empty vessels make the most noise.’ The guy sure is a dry pea in a tin can.”
Tony Fry, Founder, EcoDesign Foundation, Australia
“The role of designers isn’t going away. It’s way bigger than that.”
Neal Moore, Founder, Senior Associate, Jump Associates, United States
“It's true, we designed our way into this mess. We've all been in denial for several years.”
John Thackara, Doors of Perception, Netherlands
“To be honest, there is nothing new in his latest piece, “Are Designers the Enemy of Design?”. That is, nothing new unless his readers haven’t been paying attention to the development of design over the past decade.”
Dr. Richard Buchanan, Professor and Director of Doctoral Studies, Carnegie Mellon University, United States
“When was the last time you saw an economist blog of a major publication run by a designer?”
Elizabeth Pastor, Co-Founder, Humantific, Spain
“I applaud Bruce Nussbaum’s challenge to think critically about our practice”
Tim Brown, CEO and President, IDEO, United States
“His ‘design democracy’ is not the opposite of the designer-as-big-ego, but its multiplication.”
Anne-Marie Willis, Editor, Design Philosophy Papers, Australia
“Instead of ignoring the public, designers should reach out and invite people in to what we do.”
Ellen Lupton, Curator of Contemporary Design, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, United States
“He may have something important to tell us. Maybe he should hire a writer so we can figure out just what it is.”
Gunnar Swanson, Gunnar Swanson Design Office, United States
“Business Week has become masterful at consistently depicting a future of design and innovation that is ten years behind what is already going on in the marketplace.”
GK VanPatter, Co-Founder, NextDesign Leadership Institute, United States
“We do not live life in beta, because we live with material products, so any mistakes we make have — unlike recallable, patchable, software — material consequences."
Dr. Cameron Tonkinwise, Design Studies, School of Design, Sidney University of Technology, Australia
“Innovation is becoming not just the key to commercial success and economic prosperity, but also the key to the quality of life within society.”
Sir George Cox, Design Council, United Kingdom
Download Beautiful Diversion as PDF file
(Please note this is a sixty page document)
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