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Here I present a selection of the results of my practical work as a designer which I realised during a career of many years, as well as some observations in general about situations and phenomena that presented themselves and influenced my field of activities – and in due course my own life – and which cannot be passed over. A survey of my work as a teacher of almost thirty years and the diversity of my widely branching activities as a designer in the field of visual communication has been assembled in my book
„Design: Method and Consequence.
A Biographical Report“.
The procedure has always been for experts to devote a great deal of their time to look into the mechanisms of communication, and for many decades they pondered over possibilities to have direct communication. Particularly because information today mostly intends to instruct, influence, manipulate. Communication, whether direct or indirect, was looked upon as a mysterious process that had to be explored and developed. Today we have a technology: the internet. Everybody is able – as long as he has the technics at his disposal – to virtually and visually communicate with everybody else. Partly quickly and purposefully.
The form of communication, however, as well as the design in general, is treated as a matter of equipment, as an additional benefit of marketing strategies. Design has degenerated into a factor of sales promotion. The objects of our day-to-day life or a functional customer service are robbed of their fundamental functions, the meaning of contents loses importance while strange confusions are tolerated.
The ancient Greeks were familiar with each and every aspect of human life. They said: Panta rhei – all is flux. This statement is valid today and for evermore. Everybody is under way, everything is in motion, everything is subject to change, and at an excessive speed. This holds true in almost every sector of our existence. Even so, nobody knows where this wind of change will blow in the course of the twentyfirst century. The twentieth century brought about developments that nobody would have thought possible at its beginning. This applies not only to social life and its circumstances, but also to the everyday occurrences that keep coming to our doors delivered by the new technical possibilities. Without this the modern mass society would not exist. Progress takes a heavy toll. Not only did the pursuit of profit create the affluent society, it furthered lack of restraint on all levels of living conditions and in the material environment.
This boundlessness is followed by loss of concentration; the quality and quantity of design is out of all proportion to each other, there are no ideas as to how to face the twentyfirst century. On all levels, in all channels the amount of shortcomings is increasing.
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© Herbert W. Kapitzki, Berlin 2003
last changes: 3/21/2006
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