Consumer is king

Selina Denman, Editor

For all its protestations, and all its efforts to become more sustainable, the design industry is inherently wasteful.

Good design, as we all know, is design that lasts. It is durable enough to withstand the test of time; it is functional and intuitive; and it is aesthetically pleasing but independent of short-term fads. A truly well designed product is one you’ll want to keep for years.

Nonetheless, there are still plenty of companies out there that purposefully produce sub-standard products with a limited lifespan, feeding into a frenzy of mass consumption. It’s what Philippe Starck, in his characteristically brash but poignant way, refers to as the Kleenex society: “Buy, put in the garbage, buy, garbage. Buy, garbage.”

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For Erwan Bouroullec of the famed Bouroullec brothers, this is one of the greatest challenges facing the design world at present. CID met Bouroullec during the Middle East launch of the brothers’ latest creation, Axor Bouroullec, last month. “I think the design world is fighting against big manufacturers that make products that shouldn’t exist. I think that there are too many companies that make things that are not done very well,” he said.

Electronic goods for the kitchen are a prime example. In many cases, they are of distinctly low quality, with a lifespan of only a year or two. They are designed badly on purpose, just to keep them cheap.

It is time for the consumer to instigate change, Bouroullec insisted. “I think we really have to make people understand that it is important to buy the right product, because behind the act of buying lies a really important politic,” he said. “In France, some of the most interesting products for me are organic food products. When you buy organic vegetables or meat, I think there is a really good deal between the producer and the customer, and vice versa.”

This is evident in the fact that the customer is happy to buy better vegetables, even though they might not all be the same shape and size, or perhaps haven’t been washed properly. The customer is even willing to accept that they might not get some produce whenever they want it. The point is that they know that they are getting quality, and that is what really counts.

This attitude should be extended to all of the products that we buy – from coffee machines to office desks. The consumer is king after all, and should be using that power to great effect.