Your exhibition is entitled “Out of the Boxes” …
... because industrial design involves far more than mere product design. We present design as a responsible discipline with its face to the future as it addresses civilizational challenges: universal, inclusive, technical, constructive, informative, ecological, economic, brand-building, entrepreneurial. Twelve boxes present examples of projects from design teaching and research that paint a clear picture of how design works as a discipline.
Does the exhibition reflect the design courses at HfG Offenbach?
We’re talking about the specialist areas of industrial design, information design, digital design, urban design, material design, and integrated design—the spectrum of convergent design niches that we cover at the HfG Offenbach School of Design. This intrafaculty approach results in concrete and epistemic draft projects that deliver practical and civilizational benefits.
And otherwise? In other cases?
Design that merely apes artistic gestures is devoid of relevance. Industrial design means creating designs for rational use. Looking at mass consumption and seasonal trade fairs, we soon identify what’s irrational—it’s all just stuff.
Seriously?
Absolutely! Industrial design has the clear remit of creating genuine added value for people and their livelihoods. It isn’t an end in itself or just stuff; it’s a strategic tool for creating solutions that offer a broad range of benefits. In the face of population growth, dwindling resources, and technological change, it has a crucial role to play, as emphasized by the World Design Organization, the umbrella body of industrial design associations worldwide.
So what constitutes “stuff”?
Our future has no place for objects that only seek to please themselves and whose presence only revolves around beauty whose sole purpose is self-pleasing, and whose contemplation concerns beauty alone. Climate change and nuclear war are the greatest threats facing humanity. They are both manageable. But an anxiety-driven retreat into a decorative snugglefest is not helpful. We need enlightenment, and enlightening design.
What does that involve in concrete terms?
Given our situation of dwindling resources and climate change, we need an integrated approach that proposes lightweight construction, on-demand production, durability, and standardized parts—right from the design planning stage. Products need to cut their weight to 25 percent of the present level, energy consumption for production and logistics needs to be reduced to 25 percent of what it is today, all product advertising must take place online, and products need to be designed for at least double their current average lifespan or usability, all confirmed by appropriate mandatory manufacturer certification. And designers must learn to read rules and regulations, or even become political activists. And so on. It’s only the process, never form in itself, that is democratic.
Sounds pretty bureaucratic.
Sounds pretty sensible! From a long-term perspective, our current economic practices are positively suicidal. Entrepreneurial activity that serves nothing but selfish goals is not true entrepreneurialism. Good companies look to the future, welcome clear rules, and make use of them to become the best within that framework. Constraints are what make competition possible and create innovations. Fear of rules means fear of the future.
Does design have enough methodical and technical expertise to strike out along this path?
Fundamental change is imperative. Industrial design needs to be more firmly anchored as a STEM subject, but not solely as an engineering science. Ideally, its place is at universities offering technology subjects and humanities side by side, so that technical expertise and social context are woven into an integrated whole. Simply focusing on the technical side does not go far enough.
The article on HfG Offenbach also appears in mcbw magazine 2025.