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What is design? Bad and good design
from What is design?
Take a look around you.
Everything you see has been designed. Your coffee cup, jacket, office, phone... this booklet.
From architecture to fashion, products to graphics, transport to technology, it all begins with design.
Design shapes the world, and our lives are made better –or worse – by it.
Design is at the heart of innovation and reimagining better ways to do things.
Design plays an instrumental role in shaping the world we live in; transcending across all sectors including automotive, aerospace, architecture and consumer goods. – Rt Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP
Bad design
Today, the challenges facing Britain are immense. As well as being a force for good, design has been part of the problem. Throw-away products are clogging our landfills and depleting our natural resources.
Roads designed to cut through communities are driving emissions and social isolation. Poorly designed services are excluding communities and undermining trust.
Good design
Design can deliver the solutions.
Design is a critical enabler of innovation.
It turns ideas into action and uses applied creativity to solve problems.
Designers work with users to ensure innovation works for people.
Harry Beck’s iconic tube map radically simplified the complex underground system into a clear and comprehensible chart, improving journeys since 1933 and inspiring transport diagrams around the world ever since.
Design is the fuel of innovation. – George Freeman, MP, Minister for Science, Research and Innovation
