'Good Design' in 2009

IHT refers to examples such as the Lifelight of Freeplay Foundation, a charity that provides sustainable technologies to help poor people in developing countries. They are planning to distribute Lifelights, a lantern powered by renewable energy, to orphaned households in Rwanda this spring. Or for instance, there's the new NASA Mars Rover (picture), NASA's new unmanned Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and a collection of sustainable products being developed by Hella Jongerius and DLD Speaker Yves Behar (and a couple or other designers) for The Nature Conservancy.

Yet the author doubts whether designers will "be willing to devote quite so much time to poorly paid or pro bono humanitarian projects", as without sufficient investment "established designers will find it harder to develop new ideas, and younger ones to make their mark." Another question is whether designers are prepared to respond to social and environmental challenges. For instance, the new approaches require far greater interdisciplinary collaboration between experts from different fields and the people who are in need for sustainable solutions.

But there are also new opportunities arising with the recession (e.g. in service design), especially for "the next generation of designers who are likely to think and work differently." And many of the world's leading design schools are poised for change in 2009 -- for example, the Rhode Island School of Design recently appointed famous designer and computer scientist John Maeda as its president.Read more about this topic here.