設計師的黃金時代再一次來臨

Thanks to a convergence of creativity, technology and big money, the heyday of the field may finally be upon us.

得益於創造力、科技與財富的融合，設計領域的黃金時代或許終將來臨。

The golden age of design has been heralded many times over the past couple of decades — four, by my count. Now, this previous momentum paired with technology, community and big business has fueled something new: an unprecedented belief in the power of design to not only elevate an idea, but be the idea.

過去幾十年間，人們曾多次預告設計黃金時代的來臨——據我所知有四次。如今，這一勢頭結合科技、社羣和商機催生了新的事物：人們對設計的力量懷抱着一種前所未有的信仰，相信它不但能提升創意，其本身就是一種創意。

First, at the turn of the 21st century, it became a democratic affair. Everyday objects were made more beautiful and more readily accessible, and suddenly it was no longer acceptable for things to be unnecessarily unattractive. Moment two arrived soon after, by way of products such as the iPod, which exemplified the possibility of form as actual function. “Design,” Steve Jobs told me in 2003, is “not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” And the business world took note of what design could do for profits.

第一次預告出現在20世紀與21世紀之交，當時設計成了一場民主運動。日常用品的設計更精美、更好用，人們突然不再接受外表平凡的東西。之後沒多久，第二次預告就出現了。這一時期的典型代表就是iPod等產品的設計，證明了產品外形的實際作用。史蒂夫·喬布斯在2003年對我說：“設計不僅是外形和感覺，設計關乎如何運作。”由此商業界開始意識到設計也能帶來利潤。

As the aughts advanced, it occurred to people that if design could make products work better, it might also be able to make the world work better. Design was heralded as a creator of social change: Magazines like Good spread the word about its impact on humanity and politics; the Cooper Hewitt museum staged a show in 2007 called “Design for the Other 90%,” and a popular T-shirt from the period read: “Design Will Save the World.” Finally, a fourth moment: The advent of social media made clear that the masses not only responded to design; they cared about it enough to speak up. A new Gap logo was attacked by online mobs, and Tropicana scrapped a redesign of its orange-juice packaging after a public rebuke.

隨着事物的發展，人們意識到，既然設計能使產品更好地發揮作用，它也可以使世界更好地發揮作用。人們預告設計是社會變革的締造者：《真好》(Good)等雜誌給我們展示了設計對人類和政治的影響；庫柏·休依特博物館(Cooper Hewitt museum)在2007年舉行了一場名爲“爲其他90%而設計”的展覽，還推出了流行文化衫，上面寫着：“設計將拯救世界”。第四次預告也是最近的一次。社交媒體應運而生，它們的出現表明大衆不僅僅對設計作出迴應，他們還相當關注設計，並喊出自己的心聲。Gap的新標識遭到網民的抨擊，純果樂(Tropicana)的新設計問世後招來公衆一片罵聲，不得不重新設計橙汁包裝。

These days, engineering-centric Silicon Valley sees design as something that no longer just adds value, but actually creates it. Last year, Nest Labs, maker of the sleekly styled smart thermostat, was purchased by Google for $3.2 billion. This was not just a staggering amount of money for a company that specializes in household objects; it was Google’s second most expensive acquisition ever. The industrial designer Yves Béhar, who is behind the elegant Jawbone Up fitness tracker, sometimes takes equity stakes in start-ups he works with rather than payment. Instead of thinking of himself as an outside consultant, Béhar invests in companies that invest in design, banking on their future growth.

現在，以工程設計爲中心的硅谷將設計的意義定位爲創造價值，而非僅僅增加價值。谷歌去年以32億美元的價格收購了流線型智能恆溫器製造商Nest Labs公司，這不僅對這家專注於家居用品的公司來說是一筆巨大的資金，對谷歌來說也是有史以來第二昂貴的收購項目。智能手環健康追蹤功能的設計者——工業設計師伊夫·貝哈爾(Yves Behar)經常從初創企業收取股權作爲工作報酬。他並不只把自己當作公司的外部顧問，他還對那些重視設計的公司進行投資，期許從公司的未來發展中取得回報。

The idea that design can generate profit is now being embraced by venture capitalists, too — that rarefied class known for its relentless focus on the marketplace as the ultimate arbiter of value. The well-regarded Silicon Valley venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers raised eyebrows last year by bringing in John Maeda, the former president of the Rhode Island School of Design, as a partner. The firm has noticed more designers starting companies with the help of engineers, rather than the other way around.

當前，“設計可以產生利潤”這一想法也受到風投家的歡迎。衆所周知，風投家這個經營階層非常關注產品的市場，他們是產品價值的最終仲裁者。硅谷著名的風險投資公司KPCB(Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)於去年邀請羅德島設計學院前校長約翰·前田(John Maeda)與其合作，此舉引起人們的廣泛關注。該公司發現，越來越多的設計師在工程師的協助下開了公司，而非相反。

Kleiner’s Mike Abbott points to the Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who moved from software to hardware when he founded Square, the seamlessly designed product that lets anyone take credit-card payments through a smartphone. Similarly, the home-sharing firm Airbnb’s systematic thinking and simple user interface have made it immensely popular — and earned it a $10 billion valuation. (Two of its founders are RISD graduates.) Smart design is intrinsic to its success.

Twitter的合夥創始人傑克·多爾西(Jack Dorsey)受到KPCB公司麥克·阿伯特(Mike Abbott)的啓發，從軟件領域進入硬件領域，創辦了Square，設計了智能手機支付的無縫銜接產品，該產品可滿足人們對信用卡在線付款的需求。同樣，經營家庭共享服務的Airbnb公司以系統的思維和簡潔的用戶界面而廣受好評，獲得了價值100億美元的市場價值評估（該公司兩位創始人均畢業於羅德島設計學院）。而智能設計是其成功的內在原因。

“People who make things generally have not been in the seat of power,” Maeda argues, “because they’re busy making things.” But he believes that’s starting to change, and that eventually people like Airbnb’s co-founders will bring design-based thinking to mainstream business practices.

“通常情況下，生產者無法掌控市場的發展方向，”前田表示，“他們只是忙於生產。”但他相信這一切正在發生改變，像Airbnb公司的合夥創始人一樣，人們最終會把以設計爲基礎的想法用於主流商業實踐。

This design moment is also about a different marketplace — that of ideas.

設計的時代同時也爲靈感開拓了市場。

The influential MoMA senior architecture and design curator Paola Antonelli believes that one of design’s most important functions is “to help people deal with change.” Her exhibitions have featured projects such as the EyeWriter, a pair of glasses outfitted with eye-tracking technology that lets a user “draw” with his eyes. Created for a paralyzed artist, the product is a collaboration between technologists and designers, and relies on open-source software. It has no commercial ambitions. It’s simply a sharp example of an expressive designed object.

頗具影響力的MoMA高級建築和設計策展人保拉·安特那利(Paola Antonelli)認爲，設計最重要的功能之一是“幫助人們應對變化”。這部分展覽中包含“眼鏡書寫器”等特色項目。“眼鏡書寫器”是一副配備眼球追蹤技術的眼鏡，用戶可以通過眼睛的移動進行“繪圖”。該產品最初是給一位癱瘓藝術家設計的，利用了開源軟件技術，是科技和設計人員的協力之作。它的問世不存在商業野心，卻爲富有表現力的設計對象樹立了一個鮮明的典範。

We’re living in a time of “acknowledged urgency,” Antonelli says, and pragmatic fields from science to politics to business are looking to design for “inspiration, alternative processes, metaphor and a bit of uplift.” (“Delight” has become a buzzword in Silicon Valley.) As a result, design has become incredibly multifaceted in recent years, encompassing subfields such as interaction design, critical design, environmental design, social design, biodesign and service design, to name just a few. It’s become a medium for expressing ideas, raising provocative questions and addressing social and individual anxieties.

我們生活在一個充滿“認同危機”的時代，安特那利說，從科學到政治再到商業等務實領域都嘗試從設計中尋求“靈感、替代性流程、隱喻以及精神動力”。（在硅谷，“愉悅”[Delight]已經成爲流行詞彙）因此，近年來，設計的領域已日趨拓展，出現瞭如交互設計、鑑定設計、環境設計、社會設計、生物設計和服務設計等衆多分支學科，上述提到的僅是其中的一小部分。設計已經成爲表達思想、提出尖銳問題和表達社會及個體焦慮的一個媒介。

So is design a business builder or idea spreader? Both, often at the same time.

那麼，設計到底是在爲商業添磚加瓦，還是在爲思想傳經佈道？通常情況下，二者兼有。

In earlier moments, the democratization of design was about what we could buy. Now it’s about what we can make and how we can sell. The online marketplace Etsy has redefined how small-scale makers can earn a living, or at least subsidize a creative hobby. Last year, the site hosted more than a million active shops. According to a 2012 survey, nearly a fifth of Etsy sellers considered running their creative businesses their full-time job. Crowdfunding services like Kickstarter also enable aspiring design entrepreneurs to find support for their projects. One breakaway success was an early-stage “smart watch” called Pebble, which could connect to smartphones, display emails and text messages and even run apps. Two years ago, without the backing of an established company — let alone venture capitalists — its founders raised more than half a million dollars in a matter of hours, eventually bringing in $10 million to develop the watch. As Maeda observed, today’s design student may be less interested in building a portfolio than in simply crowdfunding an idea.

早年，設計民主化體現在我們能買到什麼，而在今天，則更多的表現在我們能夠生產什麼，以及以何種形式銷售。網商Etsy爲小生產者如何謀生指明瞭新的道路，或者說至少爲其提供了一個獨創性的發展方向。去年，該網站已入駐超過一百萬家活躍商鋪。2012年的一項調查結果顯示，近五成Etsy賣家有意將創意商鋪發展爲全職工作。如Kickstarter等衆籌服務商也鼓勵有抱負的設計承辦人爲其項目尋求支持。獨立成功的典範是一款名爲“卵石”(Pebble)的早期智能手錶。用戶可通過這塊手錶連接智能手機、收發郵件、讀取短信甚至運行應用程序。兩年前，在沒有任何公司支持、沒有任何風投幫助的情況下，“卵石”的創始人通過衆籌的方式，僅在幾小時的時間內就籌集了近50萬美元，並最終籌得1000萬美元開發這款手錶。據前田觀察，現在學設計的學生可能更樂意通過簡單地衆籌來支持創意，而不是構建一個投資組合。

Allan Chochinov, head of the Products of Design graduate program at the School of Visual Arts, talks about how design has moved “from the aesthetic, to the strategic, to the participatory.” In his thinking, the “open source” ideology we normally associate with certain corners of tech culture has made its way into design. Engineering and design are melding; code-y enterprises are making objects; and object makers are hardwiring all kinds of things with code. Young designers need to be conversant in tools like the Arduino platform (inexpensive hardware for programming interactive objects) and customizable Raspberry Pi computers (credit card-sized circuit boards that can plug into monitors and keyboards). Style, functionality and engineering are now one and the same, and even mundane objects are virtuously designed.

視覺藝術學院主管產品設計研究生項目的艾倫·科欽(Allan Chochinov)在談論設計如何實現“從美學層面到戰略層面，再到參與層面”時表示，我們通常認爲處於科技文化角落的開源思想已被代入設計領域；工程學與設計學正趨於融合；原本靠編輯代碼爲主業的企業正嘗試生產產品；而原本以產品生產爲主業的生產商正通過代碼在各類產品之間建立連接。年輕設計師需要掌握Arduino平臺(簡易的硬件編程交互系統)等應用工具，並能運行Raspberry Pi電子設備（可插入監視器和鍵盤的信用卡大小的電路板）。現在產品外觀、實用性與工程學正在趨於一體化，即使隨處可見的小物件也是經過精心設計的。

What is certain is that all these combined elements — style, function, social impact, creativity and profit motive — have yielded an original vision of what design is and why it matters. Design has fundamentally changed the way we experience the world, from the way we interact with objects to our expectations about how organizations are structured. It’s a new and exciting moment for design — that is, until the next one comes along.

可以肯定的是，外觀、功能、社會影響、創造力和利潤動機這些因素無一不爲我們闡釋了設計的含義與意義。從我們與產品對象的交互方式到我們對組織構成的期許，設計已經從根本上改變了我們體驗世界的方式。可以說，在下個時代開啓之前，現在仍然是設計的黃金時代。