This excerpt stuck out to me, especially because in most of my design classes, I see my peers make their work based on what is happening in the real world today. Most of the design I'm surrounded by now has a purpose, and there is always a message behind it. Because this was written a while ago, it is super interesting to see how this has aged, and how this writer was able to predict something so accurate based on the design world we live in today.
We know that we need to live more lightly on the earth. We urgently need to find a way to successfully manage our natural resources, and to meet the threat of global warming and pollution in the decades to come. Unfor. tunately, these physical problems are exacerbated by the human' prob lems of our persistently unstable political landscape, widening cultural divides and the seemingly intractable problems of social inequality.
The evolutionary patterns of development which have brought us to this point may not be adequate for solving the problems we are facing today People are beginning to realise that something has to change in the very way we deal with problems. More and more companies, governments and institutions are turning towards the field of design for help. Design- ers have naturally been dealing with complex, networked problems that involve multiple stakeholders for many years. Their design thinking' in- volves the creative exploration of problems and the creation of solutions that somehow overcome the paradoxes in the problem area that would be insurmountable using traditional problem solving. This is just what we need.