Editorialists, journalists, designers, art historians - all agree that design is a young sector. Is this correct ? Although the design sector may be characterised by young industries, is design really that young ? Looking back at the Crystal Palace exhibition, many people would agree that design is about 150 years old. Again, is this true? Is design the oldest activity of all ?
If we look at the main design domains –product design, communication design, environment design and fashion design– can we tell that design dates from 1851? Human beings made tools and objects well before that date. Can we ignore the fact that they wore clothes, built houses or communicated hundreds and thousands of years before the industrial revolution? The drawings in the Lascaux caves also tell us that man began to think about communication thousands of years ago.
Our ancestors did not call themselves designers but they were acting more or less as designers. The shift that happened at various points in history is that designing became a conscious activity. It became more and more sophisticated, along with technology, market constraints and other developments. Can design be related to a production process – industrialisation – in an age where sustainable development is leading us to a smaller, regional, on-demand scale of production? And, production processes that we consider today as ‘craft’ were at some point at the cutting edge of technology.
So, design activity is probably one of the oldest activities of mankind. The fact that we still consider it as a young profession is merely a sign that design is not yet a mature sector, economically speaking. Although it is exciting to be in a profession that has discovered eternal youth, this brings challenges for designers. It also generates difficulties for career development and one simply cannot make a living from a passion. These are challenges that educators should address and integrate into their programmes.
