Sustainism?

by Renny Ramakers

Sustainability is still a buzzword in today’s design society. I’ve even heard the word sustainism, in line with modernism, futurism and all the other isms that have been created in the past. I don’t understand why we should invent a new ism for an attitude that should be part of people’s everyday life.

With all this sustainability talk we should not forget that design is also about aesthetics, emotions and experience and that we can only succeed if there is a balance between everything that makes a product desirable.

In April 2010 Droog presented a manifesto (pictured above) in which we state that we want to redirect creative energy and to redesign the lifecycle. This manifesto was part of saved by droog., an experimental project in which we asked designers to redesign products that we bought from liquidation auctions. Now we are working on the next step, a platform on which companies can offer their dead stock to designers.

If we simply redesign what does not sell, we can save a lot of energy. Not only because it saves the products from becoming waste but also because this will redirect creativity. We all know how much time and effort it takes to design new products from scratch, trying to invent something new because so many versions already exist and it takes a long time before a designconcept has been developed into a functional product. If we start with what is already there, we can give the notion of styling a new dimension, no longer as something superficial but as something that is needed to save the product and that gives the designer more space to create what really matters. Of course it would be better just to design less products but companies need to survive and the demand for new products from the emerging countries will continue to grow. So if we don’t supply, others will. And by redesigning the existing, we can do it quickly because the most difficult part of the design and development process has already been done.