Part two: Design in the 21st century

In the last issue we were considering design in strategy and complexity. Design in strategy is a crucial discipline. It directs that the designer determines not only what to design, but why, and how to innovate contextually. Both tangible and intangible aligned trials must be conjured up, over the long term.
However, these consequences have changed since everybody gave up trying to predict what might come next in the 21st century.

Awareness
More than 1,000 people in the world are thinking the same thoughts that you are thinking at the same moment in time. Only 10 per cent of them will design and develop that idea. Do it now or leave it. Please don’t just lean on design magazines.

Development
The more possibilities you throw at the market, the more “fit” you’ll find. Stay foolish and stay hungry, as Steve Jobs said.

Things will organise themselves
Disorganised masses of newly born ideas will organise themselves into spirals. My secret is to build a mind map and then throw it away: remember everything, then forget it.
What’s next is to use external factors as a form of gratitude for internal factors. Design in strategy and complexity isn’t a formula solely for design, but also for an ecologically balanced global lifestyle for today and tomorrow.

21st-century design evolves intensification
Most of today’s 21st-century design has been intensified by functionality, aesthetics, philosophy, multi-tasking, boldness and bravura in concept and so on. Public relations and marketing media are all over those, looking for bold strokes in design, and we will be gradually forgotten when another bold design is delivered. Sensational changes, in the form of sudden extinctions, seem always to result from external factors: public relations and marketing media. How long could a bold design be alive among us, comparing to a masterful art piece, without media support? The chances for a bold stroke do occur, in the same way as rock stars play out over time. Significant changes can occur within a few generations; our grand children won’t recognise a fantastic citrus squeezer of the 20th century. But they will still recognise Michelangelo’s masterpieces.
Design can be nothing like art unless we have faith; internal factors must evolve. In other words, design is an ongoing process. We should be able to create and develop a better design from the previous one. If we cannot, then assume that design pieces are not 21st-century design. They are art pieces, and art is for art’s sake. They have nothing to do with design in the 21st century.

iECO – an innovative deconstructing and reassembling economy
iECO is a way for design directions to avoid failure in the 21st century. The law of an innovative economy says that all things innovative should have an economic aspect.
A growing economic philosophy is different from conventional economics. Today’s economy has to be driven by creativity. Technology, edutainment and design theory are positioned at the centre of the model. Modern forms of edutainment include television productions, film, museum exhibits, computers and social media, which use entertainment to attract and maintain an audience of our young people while incorporating deliberate educational content or messages. As I said, technology, edutainment and design theory are at the centre of this model rather than seen as independent forces that are effective only when a designer bounces in. Scientists, engineers, politicians, writers, visionaries, artists and religious leaders are all involved in iECO.
iECO, the innovative economy, is based on two fundamental topics: that the central goal of a creative economy should be to inspire higher productivity through better innovations, and that creative markets rely on an input of innovative resources. Profits alone will not always be as effective in inspiring higher productivity.
The first letter, “i” of iECO might stand for interactivity, individuality, internationality, innovation and intellectuality. Any move towards chaos will make a mechanical economy run down. But iECO has figured out a way to run uphill against the chaos of the 21st century: it uses the bountiful creativity of renovation to reverse the direction of chaos. It uses human creativity to continuously take apart the mechanical economy before it can fall apart. It then reassembles it using creativity; creating a better, fresh value for innovation. Finally, innovation, with consciousness and responsibility, will lead to an innovative economy. By the end of the 21st century, “economy” will no longer be a central topic.     
 The remaining letters from iECO spell “Eco”, for ecology, ecosystem and ecofriendly. These will become the major topics, following on from global disasters like the tsunami, flooding, la niña, and so on, and human-made disasters like leaking nuclear plants, nuclear testing and toxic landfills.
In iECO, deconstructing and reassembling an innovative economy will not be an easy task and will take time, but we cannot avoid it. iECO: the innovative linking of economy, ecology and ecosystems becomes the next issue.
 
To be continued.