Commentary on Two Articles

"Research and Destroy" by Daniel van der Velden:

The biggest point I took away from reading is that we as designers should not feel bound by only designing for consumption's sake. We should take on projects that inform and generate change or the suggestion of change. For that we must do like other disciplines be informed in what we do, which leads to the following quote:

"With the removal of need and the commissioned assignment as an inseparable duo, the door is open to new paths. The designer must use this freedom, for once, not to design something else, but to redesign himself." 

To me this becomes not only an investigation into the project one does but sometimes the designer has to allow the findings to shape themselves. Which if we stuck to a corporate angle isn't much of an development outside of ascetic taste to satisfy a larger amount of consumers.

Another aspect the article had brought up was that Graphic Design has seen a visible split and I can say that it's very true. Which is best explained in this quote:

"It is not so strange that a branch of graphic design has evolved that no longer hangs around waiting for an assignment, but instead takes action on its own accord. It has polarized into the ‘willing to work’, who often have little or no control over their own positions, and the ‘out of work’, who, with little economic support beyond  re-channelled [sic] subsidies or grants, work on innovation for the sake of innovation."

I can honestly say I have been taught from a more commercial end in the past, but at the same time those instructors pushed to think past end product and look at the steps we took to get there more and more.

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"The Consumer: The Republic of Fat" an excerpt from The Omnivore's Dilemma by Micheal Pollan :

In short, we the people have become alarmingly more obese as a nation thanks to putting in corn in to more of our food supply. At length, this excerpt explains to us how we used corn to produce whiskey which lead to prohibition. While the end result of prohibition as riots, crime, and a decrease of consumption. Seeing a similar prohibition to HFCS or other corn byproducts would likely not happen, there is too much money in corn to allow that.

"Much as today, the astounding productivity of American farmers proved to be their own worst enemy, as well as a threat to public health. For when yields rise, the market is flooded with grain, and its price collapses. What happens next? The excess biomass works like a vacuum in reverse: Sooner or later, clever marketers will figure out a way to induce the human omnivore to consume the surfeit of cheap calories."

I guess I feel a tad dumb for not realizing we as omnivores we are rather dumb when it comes to taste. We are wired to want sweet since that means calories, and HFCS or other corn byproducts are going to be empty calories but taste sweet. This goes towards other high processed foods that offer more sweets and fats than are actually worth in our modern diet. So that fact about omnivores was new to me.

So I conclude that unless there is a bigger push for change in how we deal with corn, we might not see the change needed.