INDUSTRIAL DESIGN ISN’T DEAD, MAYBE WE’RE JUST PLAYING THE WRONG GAME

I don’t know what happens next.​ Times are strange. Systems feel broken.

But no, industrial design isn’t dead.​ We’ve just been playing a game we were never meant to play.

For years, we have told ourselves that design is about solving problems.​ Clean. Rational. Justified.​ And for a while, it worked. Kind of.

I’m reminded of an old song lyric:​ “How many lies I tell without my tongue,​ Get twisted into memories til I believe in some.”

That’s where we are.​ We believed the story. We made it our mission.

But when you define design as just problem-solving,​ you’ve created a commodity market.​ Now it’s just a race to solve it faster. Cheaper.​ And we all lose.

I’m not saying we throw out function, or ignore the constraints.

But we’ve over-rotated.

We’ve optimized so hard for efficiency, we forgot how to make people feel.

This isn’t about abandoning problem-solving,

it’s about bringing back meaning alongside it.

The kind of meaning that can’t be benchmarked or batched.

The kind that lingers.

Because design was never JUST about utility.​ But also desire.​ Resonance.​ Impact.

The kind of object that stays with you.​ That shapes the person who uses it.​ That whispers something about who we are,​ or who we want to be.

It’s time we stop playing the game of - solve and ship.​ And start creating things people crave again.

Let’s move past micro dopamine hits.​ Let’s make things worth falling in love with.​ Design that lingers.​ Design that lives with you.

That’s the game I want to play.

———​ Industrial Designers International - https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13176226/