WHY DESIGNERS ABANDONED THEIR DREAMS OF CHANGING THE WORLD

Summary from the TLDR Design newsletter

Design, once envisioned as a transformative force to improve lives through modernist principles of efficiency and social purpose, has been co-opted by capitalism into a marketing tool that drives overproduction and waste. The profession now splits between young designers creating activist statements that highlight global crises without offering solutions, and celebrity designers who transform themselves into brands through superficial collaborations and installations. Despite widespread awareness of the planetary crisis and design's complicity in it, the field has retreated into impotence, abandoning its ethical mission to change the world in favor of performative gestures and spectacle.