1. Consumer-led Design
'We are so much surrounded by examples of 'consumer-led' or 'market-led' design in our everyday lives that it now appears to be a natural and inevitable aspect of our society. But we need to stand back from this type of design to understand its values - both explicit and implicit - and its implications.'
'Terence Conran recalls that, 'There was a strange moment around the mid-60s when people stopped needing and need changed to want. . . Designers became more important in producing "want" products rather than "need" products, because you have to create desire.' This relates to brand strategies and how they focus on providing consumers with what they 'need'.
'A product broadly aimed at an undefined mass is likely to fail because it does not satisfy any particular group or segment of the market.'
'Market research and motivational research are the tools frequently used by manufacturers to gain such information and, predictably, it was in America - the country with the most developed consumerist society in the 1950s that such tools were used widely for the first time.' This section of the chapter relates directly to brands and how they ensure that the products they produce are suitable and needed by their consumer market.
Papanek and designers from the 'Real World' :103
'The design profession is understandably unsettled by Papanek's fundamental rejection of the way they earn their daily living, and their defence reasction usually takes the form of a sneering accusation of naivety in believing that society could be otherwise.'
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