In Chapter 7 Heskett's talks about the intersection of design and corporate, national and personal identity. Mostly he talks about how designing globally or across cultures is becoming increasingly difficult because of increasing globalization and interconnectedness thanks to things like the internet. What I found most interesting in the chapter was his description of personal identity and how in today's world it is possible to be in one place, be part of that places identity but also to belong to a separate group, a separate identity that exists globally. He puts it well when he writes, "it is possible to be at the same time a member of one culture and a member of one or more subcultures that might have little in common with the dominant form" (Heskett 85).
Chapter 8 talks of systems and how design attempts to tackle systems and changing systems, sometimes unsuccessfully. What I found most interesting was his discussion of new and old systems. He writes, "As so often in history, new technologies tend to be defined initially in old forms and a transition period seems to be necessary before new forms are evolved. Typical examples are the horseless carriage before it developed into the automobile, or desk-top computers, basically a television screen and a typewriter, which still awaits resolution" (Heskett 96). The line about the computer really struck me because I had never thought of a desktop as a transition perion without resolution. Of course, when this book was published I was still in middle school so I suppose my perspective is a bit skewed. I think that if Heskett were to look at the modern (2011) landscape of technology that he would say that we are still moving towards a resolution of the computing issue. We have now created a myriad of devices that have multiple functions and are continually searching for ways to further squeeze more functionality into our devices. Think about it, in 2002 we had desktops, some laptops and the iPod had just been released. In 9 short years we have developed Smart phones that are as powerful as the desktops of 2002, tablet computers that are even more powerful, and the laptop has come and gone as the golden child of computing. I actually think that it's quite exciting to be living in this time, just waiting until the next computing forms comes into being. Now back to the reading...
In the introduction to cradle to cradle McDonough honestly scared me a little bit. I thought I was aware of all the toxins and non-natural products present in my home but I didn't realize that they were so prevalent. I actually found this to be somewhat ironic because were living in a society moving more and more towards creating a "natural" world with foods and products that are processed as little as possible, but most of us rely on products that are incredibly processed and contain so many harmful things. I think McDonough makes it clear just from the introduction that one of the main motivations behind/points of this book will be design focused on bringing together what he describes as two disparate worlds, industrialization and nature. Perhaps my favorite point of his is at the end of the introduction where he comments on how ants have a biomass greater than that of humans (there are more of them by mass), yet their impact on the environment is quite the opposite of ours. They, in fact, have lived millions of years giving back to the environment, "[nourishing] plants, animals, and soil. Human industry has been in full swing for a little over a century, yet it has brought about a decline in almost every ecosystem on the planet. Nature doesn't have a design problem. People do" (McDonough 16).
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