Thanks to a convergence of creativity, technology and big money, the heyday of the field may finally be upon us.
得益于创造力、科技与财富的融合，设计领域的黄金时代或许终将来临。The golden age of design has been heralded many times over the past couple of decades — four, by my count. Now, this previous momentum paired with technology, community and big business has fueled something new: an unprecedented belief in the power of design to not only elevate an idea, but be the idea.
过去几十年间，人们曾多次预告设计黄金时代的来临——据我所知有四次。如今，这一势头结合科技、社群和商机催生了新的事物：人们对设计的力量怀抱着一种前所未有的信仰，相信它不但能提升创意，其本身就是一种创意。
First, at the turn of the 21st century, it became a democratic affair. Everyday objects were made more beautiful and more readily accessible, and suddenly it was no longer acceptable for things to be unnecessarily unattractive. Moment two arrived soon after, by way of products such as the iPod, which exemplified the possibility of form as actual function. “Design,” Steve Jobs told me in 2003, is “not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” And the business world took note of what design could do for profits.
第一次预告出现在20世纪与21世纪之交，当时设计成了一场民主运动。日常用品的设计更精美、更好用，人们突然不再接受外表平凡的东西。之后没多久，第二次预告就出现了。这一时期的典型代表就是iPod等产品的设计，证明了产品外形的实际作用。史蒂夫·乔布斯在2003年对我说：“设计不仅是外形和感觉，设计关乎如何运作。”由此商业界开始意识到设计也能带来利润。
As the aughts advanced, it occurred to people that if design could make products work better, it might also be able to make the world work better. Design was heralded as a creator of social change: Magazines like Good spread the word about its impact on humanity and politics; the Cooper Hewitt museum staged a show in 2007 called “Design for the Other 90%,” and a popular T-shirt from the period read: “Design Will Save the World.” Finally, a fourth moment: The advent of social media made clear that the masses not only responded to design; they cared about it enough to speak up. A new Gap logo was attacked by online mobs, and Tropicana scrapped a redesign of its orange-juice packaging after a public rebuke.
随着事物的发展，人们意识到，既然设计能使产品更好地发挥作用，它也可以使世界更好地发挥作用。人们预告设计是社会变革的缔造者：《真好》(Good)等杂志给我们展示了设计对人类和政治的影响；库柏·休依特博物馆(Cooper Hewitt museum)在2007年举行了一场名为“为其他90%而设计”的展览，还推出了流行文化衫，上面写着：“设计将拯救世界”。第四次预告也是最近的一次。社交媒体应运而生，它们的出现表明大众不仅仅对设计作出回应，他们还相当关注设计，并喊出自己的心声。Gap的新标识遭到网民的抨击，纯果乐(Tropicana)的新设计问世后招来公众一片骂声，不得不重新设计橙汁包装。These days, engineering-centric Silicon Valley sees design as something that no longer just adds value, but actually creates it. Last year, Nest Labs, maker of the sleekly styled smart thermostat, was purchased by Google for $3.2 billion. This was not just a staggering amount of money for a company that specializes in household objects; it was Google’s second most expensive acquisition ever. The industrial designer Yves Béhar, who is behind the elegant Jawbone Up fitness tracker, sometimes takes equity stakes in start-ups he works with rather than payment. Instead of thinking of himself as an outside consultant, Béhar invests in companies that invest in design, banking on their future growth.
现在，以工程设计为中心的硅谷将设计的意义定位为创造价值，而非仅仅增加价值。谷歌去年以32亿美元的价格收购了流线型智能恒温器制造商Nest Labs公司，这不仅对这家专注于家居用品的公司来说是一笔巨大的资金，对谷歌来说也是有史以来第二昂贵的收购项目。智能手环健康追踪功能的设计者——工业设计师伊夫·贝哈尔(Yves Behar)经常从初创企业收取股权作为工作报酬。他并不只把自己当作公司的外部顾问，他还对那些重视设计的公司进行投资，期许从公司的未来发展中取得回报。The idea that design can generate profit is now being embraced by venture capitalists, too — that rarefied class known for its relentless focus on the marketplace as the ultimate arbiter of value. The well-regarded Silicon Valley venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers raised eyebrows last year by bringing in John Maeda, the former president of the Rhode Island School of Design, as a partner. The firm has noticed more designers starting companies with the help of engineers, rather than the other way around.
当前，“设计可以产生利润”这一想法也受到风投家的欢迎。众所周知，风投家这个经营阶层非常关注产品的市场，他们是产品价值的最终仲裁者。硅谷著名的风险投资公司KPCB(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)于去年邀请罗德岛设计学院前校长约翰·前田(John Maeda)与其合作，此举引起人们的广泛关注。该公司发现，越来越多的设计师在工程师的协助下开了公司，而非相反。Kleiner’s Mike Abbott points to the Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who moved from software to hardware when he founded Square, the seamlessly designed product that lets anyone take credit-card payments through a smartphone. Similarly, the home-sharing firm Airbnb’s systematic thinking and simple user interface have made it immensely popular — and earned it a $10 billion valuation. (Two of its founders are RISD graduates.) Smart design is intrinsic to its success.
Twitter的合伙创始人杰克·多尔西(Jack Dorsey)受到KPCB公司麦克·阿伯特(Mike Abbott)的启发，从软件领域进入硬件领域，创办了Square，设计了智能手机支付的无缝衔接产品，该产品可满足人们对信用卡在线付款的需求。同样，经营家庭共享服务的Airbnb公司以系统的思维和简洁的用户界面而广受好评，获得了价值100亿美元的市场价值评估（该公司两位创始人均毕业于罗德岛设计学院）。而智能设计是其成功的内在原因。“People who make things generally have not been in the seat of power,” Maeda argues, “because they’re busy making things.” But he believes that’s starting to change, and that eventually people like Airbnb’s co-founders will bring design-based thinking to mainstream business practices.
“通常情况下，生产者无法掌控市场的发展方向，”前田表示，“他们只是忙于生产。”但他相信这一切正在发生改变，像Airbnb公司的合伙创始人一样，人们最终会把以设计为基础的想法用于主流商业实践。This design moment is also about a different marketplace — that of ideas.
设计的时代同时也为灵感开拓了市场。The influential MoMA senior architecture and design curator Paola Antonelli believes that one of design’s most important functions is “to help people deal with change.” Her exhibitions have featured projects such as the EyeWriter, a pair of glasses outfitted with eye-tracking technology that lets a user “draw” with his eyes. Created for a paralyzed artist, the product is a collaboration between technologists and designers, and relies on open-source software. It has no commercial ambitions. It’s simply a sharp example of an expressive designed object.
颇具影响力的MoMA高级建筑和设计策展人保拉·安特那利(Paola Antonelli)认为，设计最重要的功能之一是“帮助人们应对变化”。这部分展览中包含“眼镜书写器”等特色项目。“眼镜书写器”是一副配备眼球追踪技术的眼镜，用户可以通过眼睛的移动进行“绘图”。该产品最初是给一位瘫痪艺术家设计的，利用了开源软件技术，是科技和设计人员的协力之作。它的问世不存在商业野心，却为富有表现力的设计对象树立了一个鲜明的典范。We’re living in a time of “acknowledged urgency,” Antonelli says, and pragmatic fields from science to politics to business are looking to design for “inspiration, alternative processes, metaphor and a bit of uplift.” (“Delight” has become a buzzword in Silicon Valley.) As a result, design has become incredibly multifaceted in recent years, encompassing subfields such as interaction design, critical design, environmental design, social design, biodesign and service design, to name just a few. It’s become a medium for expressing ideas, raising provocative questions and addressing social and individual anxieties.
我们生活在一个充满“认同危机”的时代，安特那利说，从科学到政治再到商业等务实领域都尝试从设计中寻求“灵感、替代性流程、隐喻以及精神动力”。（在硅谷，“愉悦”[Delight]已经成为流行词汇）因此，近年来，设计的领域已日趋拓展，出现了如交互设计、鉴定设计、环境设计、社会设计、生物设计和服务设计等众多分支学科，上述提到的仅是其中的一小部分。设计已经成为表达思想、提出尖锐问题和表达社会及个体焦虑的一个媒介。So is design a business builder or idea spreader? Both, often at the same time.
那么，设计到底是在为商业添砖加瓦，还是在为思想传经布道？通常情况下，二者兼有。In earlier moments, the democratization of design was about what we could buy. Now it’s about what we can make and how we can sell. The online marketplace Etsy has redefined how small-scale makers can earn a living, or at least subsidize a creative hobby. Last year, the site hosted more than a million active shops. According to a 2012 survey, nearly a fifth of Etsy sellers considered running their creative businesses their full-time job. Crowdfunding services like Kickstarter also enable aspiring design entrepreneurs to find support for their projects. One breakaway success was an early-stage “smart watch” called Pebble, which could connect to smartphones, display emails and text messages and even run apps. Two years ago, without the backing of an established company — let alone venture capitalists — its founders raised more than half a million dollars in a matter of hours, eventually bringing in $10 million to develop the watch. As Maeda observed, today’s design student may be less interested in building a portfolio than in simply crowdfunding an idea.
早年，设计民主化体现在我们能买到什么，而在今天，则更多的表现在我们能够生产什么，以及以何种形式销售。网商Etsy为小生产者如何谋生指明了新的道路，或者说至少为其提供了一个独创性的发展方向。去年，该网站已入驻超过一百万家活跃商铺。2012年的一项调查结果显示，近五成Etsy卖家有意将创意商铺发展为全职工作。如Kickstarter等众筹服务商也鼓励有抱负的设计承办人为其项目寻求支持。独立成功的典范是一款名为“卵石”(Pebble)的早期智能手表。用户可通过这块手表连接智能手机、收发邮件、读取短信甚至运行应用程序。两年前，在没有任何公司支持、没有任何风投帮助的情况下，“卵石”的创始人通过众筹的方式，仅在几小时的时间内就筹集了近50万美元，并最终筹得1000万美元开发这款手表。据前田观察，现在学设计的学生可能更乐意通过简单地众筹来支持创意，而不是构建一个投资组合。Allan Chochinov, head of the Products of Design graduate program at the School of Visual Arts, talks about how design has moved “from the aesthetic, to the strategic, to the participatory.” In his thinking, the “open source” ideology we normally associate with certain corners of tech culture has made its way into design. Engineering and design are melding; code-y enterprises are making objects; and object makers are hardwiring all kinds of things with code. Young designers need to be conversant in tools like the Arduino platform (inexpensive hardware for programming interactive objects) and customizable Raspberry Pi computers (credit card-sized circuit boards that can plug into monitors and keyboards). Style, functionality and engineering are now one and the same, and even mundane objects are virtuously designed.
视觉艺术学院主管产品设计研究生项目的艾伦·科钦(Allan Chochinov)在谈论设计如何实现“从美学层面到战略层面，再到参与层面”时表示，我们通常认为处于科技文化角落的开源思想已被代入设计领域；工程学与设计学正趋于融合；原本靠编辑代码为主业的企业正尝试生产产品；而原本以产品生产为主业的生产商正通过代码在各类产品之间建立连接。年轻设计师需要掌握Arduino平台(简易的硬件编程交互系统)等应用工具，并能运行Raspberry Pi电子设备（可插入监视器和键盘的信用卡大小的电路板）。现在产品外观、实用性与工程学正在趋于一体化，即使随处可见的小物件也是经过精心设计的。What is certain is that all these combined elements — style, function, social impact, creativity and profit motive — have yielded an original vision of what design is and why it matters. Design has fundamentally changed the way we experience the world, from the way we interact with objects to our expectations about how organizations are structured. It’s a new and exciting moment for design — that is, until the next one comes along.
可以肯定的是，外观、功能、社会影响、创造力和利润动机这些因素无一不为我们阐释了设计的含义与意义。从我们与产品对象的交互方式到我们对组织构成的期许，设计已经从根本上改变了我们体验世界的方式。可以说，在下个时代开启之前，现在仍然是设计的黄金时代。