Design: The Invention of Desire

"Jessica in her works, much like Hara, moves in a direction away from the present Zeitgeist around all things design related, the digital and the data thinking, and really reinforces the point that design represents one of the most important humanistic disciplines that we can imagine. In her words, design gets to the very heart of the question of why we even exist. I met Jessica through an invitation to join one of Design Observer’s podcasts , “The Design of Business | The Business of Design,” founded by Jessica Helfand and Michael Bierut. That’s when I learned that she has an extensive library of books under her authorship. In the face of certain online paradigms that we see in the headlines – whether it’s IDEO trying to “redesign death” or LinkedIn trying to redesign the workplace – she’s reading our designed environment from a very personal place, taking as a reference point her very own experience with loss and grief. She is able to take this raw, very personal experience, and communicate it to us through the prism of design. Design, she reminds us, is not just some glossy veneer that you dance over. It is central, and not some kind of facade to which we apply ‘design thinking’. These are principles that are so much deeper than what the present pedagogy of design is giving rhyme and reason to. She’s reminding us what those core human tenets are. I just love that every chapter breaks down a life in design into such resonant elements, whether it’s patience, compassion, melancholy, humility. The chapter titles themselves are human strivings that we need to understand as designers. These books are reminding us of what it means to be human, what it means to unlock human potential, human connection. With the pace of technological change there’s so much data richness that often in our profession I believe we’re at risk of glossing over the important questions that we need to think about. I believe we need to mind the past, we need to be more present in the human moments today, and of course imagine a myriad of possible and plausible futures that we could design for. All of these questions are connected."