July 1, 2019

Everywhere: in the places that get wet when the vessel overflows, that blur together from proximity and similarity, or that resonate by the law of simultaneous contrast.
These are the places where design lives. Not in the studio, not in the classroom, not in the archive. Those are all places where design is, often in a past or present tense.
Design lives where we live: on our subways and highways, in our grocery stores and our bodegas, in the places where we eat, drink, exchange.
It is the opposite of injustice. It is the antidote to loneliness. It is the adversary of adversity.
The places where design collides with capitalism must be incidental and not intrinsic. They must be supportive and not exploitative. Their motives must be transparent and not obscured. Otherwise they are not design, but advertizing.
We need to remember that design is not a craft or a skill, but the pragmatization of idealism.