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Philippe Starck = Pessimist

«While I do agree with him that all he “created is absolutely useless”, I do have to argue his point that “design is dead.” There are countless designers (amateur and professional) delivering and working on products that enhance life, bring joy and make this world a little easier to deal with for people in all walks of life.»

Wonderfully put.

This is a total slap in the face to all the consumers who bought his design based on the inspiration it created. I also bet any designer who had collaborated with him and manufacturer are pissed off at him right now.

This is just Starck being himself, placing himself above everyone once again and flattering its ego while regarding itself as the first designer to supposedly realize that design is useless. I wouldn’t pay attention to him if I were you, next thing you know you’ll probably end up seeing another design by Starck near you.

1) I take anything he says with a grain of salt, to me his always been “wacky”.

2) However in his defense I will say this, human needs or survival is depended on food, water and shelter. And that design is something which is not vital therefore “unnecessary”.

In spite of his remarks, I think he planned everything. True master in marketing, after all there is no bad publicity.

I think this is what many of us have all felt for a while. Amazing to hear it from the doyen of design!

In a time of starvation and war, it is refreshing to see someone admit what should have been obvious for decades! So why is he waiting two years to retire? If he means what he says, he should quit now and share his wealth with the less fortunate.

As a formally trained Industrial Designer I can agree to some sense. The aesthetic side of things is in a sense dead. There are not too many new ideas that can be exercised on that end of the spectrum. What is needed in Design is more attention to the engineering end, in a sense a return to Craftwork as expressed a century ago but in todays world with the technology that was not available 100 years ago. Physical/Utilitarian objects of great visual and practical purpose can still be made, it just needs to be to be done with less emphasis on MASS production and more of a hybrid style of limited custom and limited mass production. Objects that dwell less on plastics and synthetics and more towards a more hand-worked and natural materials. Objects that are much less emphasized in their disposableness and works that people can enjoy for decades with a more classic and timeless aesthetic, objects people will WANT to keep for years, the perception of a greater value. Too much today is geared around just selling it and a few months or weeks later it is at the wayside.

Thats like a chef spending his life making delicious food, and then at the end saying that food is for retards.
Wow Philippe, you’re hurting my delicate feelings, you’re so smart and everyone else is an idiot, you’re obviously more than human, a god of sorts, you don’t even have to try to be awesome, in fact you’re so awesome that it pisses you off.
Of course your life seems worthless if you just design rectangles for rich people.
This is good though, at least its getting a reaction out of people.

His kind of design is useless!
Tell it to some designer who works making ecologically correct objects, designers who try to do things with less impact in our world.
But if you are a designer who makes things for rich people. You are useless!

Worst, you are nocive.

He would know. He’s the one who killed it. Don’t listen to this self proclaimed hypocrite.

Dead right, design is dead in Mr. Starck, for a long long time already. His projects are just bunches of commercial collaborations.

So instead of using his so-called talent to reduce waste, to make products easier and better to use, he instead throws in the towel and calls it a day. Not that the narcissism isn’t surprising…

If design for Mr Starck is merely “a way to express himself”, than I’m glad it’s dead. Good riddance.

Well, I think Starck is right. But in what sense? The poor people in the world(meaning the majority of the world) need doctors, educators, and other professionals to help them. Where does the designer come in? What is his/her importamce? How much can he/she help the majority of the world population? Compared to other professionals in my humble opinion, the have no importance!
Today the problem in my opinion is over consumption. Especially when it is related to global warming and the financial crisis facing the world. In this world of competition and a harsh reality, Starck nicely says sums it up ” But the thing one needs most, he added, was the “ability to love”.

One of his 20 business is Yoo business = 50000 appartments in the world… it’s enought to stop design!!!!

Yoo by Starck is currently working on 41 projects totaling 25,000 apartments across 21 countries.

Till people stop to search solutions to their needs there will be no Design then, no matter wich class level we’re talking about.

Starck its trying to start the debate of the contemporary designers; to produce over consumption, over production… So yes, Design is dying in Mr. Starck.

last year starck was at ted conference, this year, it is behar , designer of the year with OLPC laptop… After design for 10%, it’s the time to design for the 90%…

You are only as good as your last piece of design, so what does this make him? His name used to be hidden on the bottom of his work now its plastered on the front in huge letters.

Every dog has his day and Phil had a good run. By him saying design is dead he is saying he wants out.

He has become a victim of his own brand. So in that respect the king is dead. Long live the king..!

Starck is massively over rated, it still amazes me anyone thinks he is a good designer. A friend of mine has a Juicy Salif which he doesn’t use because it is a terrible juice squeezer, so it just sits there in his kitchen. For my money if a product doesn’t perform its primary function then it fails as a product.

I feel he represents all that is wrong in design. His designs are almost exclusively form over function, and personally I don’t particularly like his aesthetic style. He is a pompous and pretentious “arty designer”, if he wants out of the design world then let him go, we’re better off without him and his ilk.

About jucy salif , Starck was in competition with Jean Nouvel and 3 others french architectes eg 2 Pulitzer price …Alessi ask him to design a tray … a tray is invisible
the starck’s answer was juicy salif . He sent a restaurant napkin with hand sketches annd tomato to alberto alessi … it is a conversation starter not a juice squeezer …an icon, a best seller, with great media coverage for alessi and for Philippe Starck…. at else?
He is not pompous may be pretentious but not always “arty designer”,…..

“Where does the designer come in? Are you kidding me? What about the water purifiers, disaster relief products, aids for disabled, medical and hygiene products, OLPC”

I think you mean these products are “designed” by engineers?

designer is a generalist so it’s often designers + engineers+ marketing+management…
For OLPC fuseproject are not alone…others companies and org works with them
MIT+ Continuum+ fuse+ others… even is Behar is often alone
it’s the same for Starck … even if he is alone on stage…

if you make a search on INDEX AWARD , design to improve life, the awser is:
HERE IS THE RESULT OF YOUR SEARCH:
The search – starck – generated no hits.

Zeit magazine LIFE, 27.03.2008 NR. 14
Philippe Starck is a star designer of the past two decades. Nevertheless, he says today: “everything that I designed is absolutely unnecessary.” An interview.

Zeit magazine: Mr. Starck, you have designed everything; from the toothbrush to the spaceship. What do people really need?

Philippe Starck: The ability to love. Love is the most marvelous invention of mankind. And then one needs intelligence. Mankind is ahead of the animals in that we, based on intelligence, created a civilization. Therefore no person can afford not to work on its own intelligence. And humor is important.

Zeit magazine: Nothing material occurs to you?

Starck: We do not need anything material. It is much more important that one develops one’s own ethics. And that one also adheres to these rules. Otherwise one must worry oneself about nothing.

Zeit magazine: That is not your serious [concern]. There are nevertheless probably all kinds of things one needs for survival.

Starck: If you talking about objects like: one surely needs something, in order to make fires.

Zeit magazine: What still occurs to you somewhat?

Starck: A pillow perhaps and a good mattress.

Zeit magazine: Why did you then become an industrial designer?

Starck: That is an interesting question. And I have not really answered it for myself yet. See, I have designed so many things, without really being interested in them. Perhaps all the years were necessary, so that I could recognize in the long run that we do not need anything for that reason. We always have too much.

Zeit magazine: Everything you’ve created – is redundant?

Starck: Everything that I designed is absolutely unnecessary. Structurally seen, Design is absolutely useless. A true occupation is an astronomer, biologist or something like that. Design is not anything. I tried to give meaning to products, some sense and energy. Even if I gave my best, it was senseless.

Zeit magazine: That is the balance of your work?

Starck: People who are smarter than I, would perhaps have understood faster. Perhaps I was not intelligent enough and had to take the difficult way. I had from the outset the suspicion that product Design is in the long run useless. Therefore I tried to transform the job into something else. Into something, which is more politically, more rebelliously, subversive. Perhaps the most important thing which I created is not a new object, but a new definition for the word designer.

Zeit magazine: They say that we are moving into the age of post-office-materialism. (not sure about this part of the translation -dlock) What is that called?

Starck: Society pursues a strategy of de-materialism. It always concerns more intelligence and fewer materials. Take the computer. First a computer was as large as a house. Now there are computers of credit card size. In ten years they will be in our bodies, bionic. In 50 years the concept “computer” will have dissolved.

Zeit magazine: What are designers then to design?

Starck: There will be no more designers. The designer of the future is a personal coach, the coach in the Gym, the diet consultant. That is everything.

Zeit magazine: It has been said that your goal is more and more to destroy Design. How far did you come?

Starck: I have achieved it! When I began, Design articles were only beautiful things. No one could afford them. Design meant elitism. But elitism is quite vulgar. The only elegance lies in the duplication.

Zeit magazine: You must explain that.

Starck: If one has the luck to have a good idea one has the obligation to share it with others. Thus democracy functions. When I began, a good chair cost about $1000. Is a family, which needs six chairs and a table, to pay 10,000 dollars to be able to eat each evening? I found that obscene. Within four years I sketched a chair which cost less than ten dollars. If one takes three zeros away from the price, one changes the entire concept of the product.

Zeit magazine: Why did you then recently create an motor yacht for a Russian millionaire?

Starck: Even that belongs to my Robin Hood concept. I use such a project like a laboratory. I can try new technologies out and make them usable for the mass-market. For the yacht I developed a hull which does not make a bow wave at 20 knots. I will use the concept for a solar boat: perhaps the prototype for a water taxi in Venice.

Zeit magazine: But you do not want to stop designing?

Starck: In any case. In two years I will definitely stop. I will make something different. I do not know what yet. It will be a new kind of the expression. A new attack, which will be faster and more enormous and easier than Design. Design is a terrible kind of expression.

Zeit magazine: Thus you will only change the job.

Starck: Exactly. I was a producer of Material [goods]. I am ashamed for it. I want in the future to be a producer of concepts. That will be more useful. (emphasis added – dlock)

Zeit magazine: Is there any object which you like?

Starck: No.

Tillmann examiner placed the questions

Philippe Starck: The 59-year old Frenchman designed objects for the mass-market beginning in the eighties. Among other things, the lemon press Juicy Salif for Alessi and the motorcycle Motó 6.5 for Aprilia excited attention.

So. This is bound to provoke a great deal of thought within the design community. There are certainly some designers and architects who agree with Mr. Starck that design is not, and cannot be, a function done in a vacuum. (See Dwell magazine for some great examples of contextual housing & furniture design.)

And I’m no designer, but do I know what I like, and I can’t help but agree with Mr. Starck. Looking at design from the 30,000 foot viewpoint is long overdue. There are so many products in the marketplace that are poorly, haphazardly designed (see my earlier entries on the Jeep Compass and Subaru Tribeca); or are simply designed to look great but fail to function properly.

Human civilization on this planet is getting to a point where we may no longer be able to afford the wastefulness that goes with our current “traditional” way of life. And I think that is part of what Mr. Starck is trying to address in his comments. We have to become more thoughtful, more deliberate, more conscious when using our creative energies. It behooves us all to consider the entire picture – the ramifications of our each and every action, because we do not act alone. John Donne wrote that “no man is an island” and that has never been more true than in this overcrowded global economy.

I look forward to your comments.

Starcks contribution as an entertainer to the masses was his goal and he did that ….we wanted to take design and bring it to the masses ..and he did the ..but what Starck is no is an original thinker and he will admit to that..he has come full circle because he cant relate anymore to the times around him..for he does not thrive on ingenuity or new ideas he takes assimilates from less accessible designers and uses their drive towards design in order for his designs to ring true with the masses..there is nothing wrong with that but you just don’t move on your own steam..for instance if you look at Niels Diffrient (spelling?) he is what 80 years old and he is still kicking out amazing shit….Be a leader not a follower ….. Starck he made a bunch of money off of his designs ..he worked the world and now he has come full circle and he is out of ideas..he had his run but I think he wont leave the area of design .

Maybe if Stark put love into his designs he would not fell the world is short of love…

5 minutes reading post Yanko Design are enough to show Mr Starck that Design is well far from Dead…

IIrukandi is right ” he has come full circle ” in design( but design is 10% of his business) He will never out of ideas… because he has a lot of ideas and differents structures give him ideas and may be a guy in Paris, in London, in Burano or cheaper in China will collect all the Web.2 “collective intelligence” here and there …. as he is preparing a book for september 2008

Philippe Starck is writing a book …for september 2008.
May be he will use your web 2.0″collective intelligence” …

Can someone point me to that 10$ Starck-Chair ???

Phillipe Starck is Dead.

Dead to me.

claus
there is a shop dedicated to starck in paris name is “objects by starck”
i dunnot find furniture for that price but only objects like plate, spoon

Phillipe Starck NOT is Dead….he staid 3 days by month in Paris eg 2 days with media and family so he had one day by month for his design studio…

I’ve loved many of Stark’s designs. For someone to say something like that reflects depression to some extent, in my opinion. This is a quick and ensured exit… going out with comments like that, no one will want to put his name behind theirs… so he’s done with in the design area either way…. with remarks like that.

I think what Stark doesn’t realize is that ‘soul’ goes into design. That says a lot more than labeling anything only as “Materiality”. Hell, even all we humans are material in disguise… might as well make the best of it and enjoy what you like.

Good luck with your future endeavours, Mr. Stark.

Even karim Rashid is becoming green but with plants…. in plastic pots… It’s a first step..
Plastic is not finish yet !!!!

I have the news now : as Starck was out of new tech ( see major us design studio as fuseproject, Ideo …), out of the new future of design (see “design and elastic Mind” in Moma) … he dvp before Milan furniture fair a global buzz (“design is dead”)…..In fact it’s a teasing for a new product range in co-branding…His stategy is now to dvp more and more a brand stategy with co-branding and brand is immaterial … The go game now is against major us studio… and not against plastic man Karim Rashid

bravo philippe!
finally someone is making a statement.

key sentence: “The designers of the future will be MY personal coach, MY gym trainer, MY diet consultant,”

“Philippe Starck is Right “said Tim Lebered from frog design on grogblog , a Major US design studio

If you can ignore his haughty language, he might have something here. It is easy to misunderstand him, as most blogs (yes even the top tier ones) have, quoted him out of context and it is obvious his English is not the best…..Design is not dead, per say, but design as we know it is evolving.” Design Sojourn, stategic industrial blog

being a designer myself, i know designers are some of the most self-important assholes there are. Starck is a good example, but so is everyone he pissed off, probably because hes right.

you all design because you like it i suppose but I doubt youd do it for free. and most of your work, and i include myself, is to pretty something up enough to seduce someone to think by buying said something their life will be better when we all know it wont be. thats why you prettysomething else up to seduce them again. and again. and again.

how fullfilling.

I agree with him. He finally realize the truth.
You should imitate Victor Papanek. I think slogan of this site “form beyond function” is bad and rotten.

Dieter Rams’ Ten Commandments of Good Design

1. Good design is innovative
2. Good design makes a product useful
3. Good design is aesthetic
4. Good design helps a product to be understood
5. Good design is unobtrusive
6. Good design is honest
7. Good design is durable
8. Good design is consistent to the last detail
9. Good design is concerned with the environment
10. Good design is as little design as possible

so Starck is not a good designer following Dieter Rams ‘s commandments…

metropolis 1998
“Peter Zec, ex president of the Design Center in Essen, Germany, … and red dot awards
“He’s not a good designer. He’s a perfect marketer. He didn’t design what you see here. He has the ideas and does a few sketches, then his studio makes the design. He works with some very talented people. The awards are for the products — the products of Studio Starck — not Starck himself.”

He got big name with his design which is not for everybody I think its for people who like different looking objects. Even if I don’t like mostly objects he created I still get inspired. But its strange to see that he got big Mouth when he is getting older.

Its not nice to make statements like this. We all know that design is not dead and its never going to be.

He just likes making fun of him self, that how he is lately. His branding is like this. If you see some of his video or photos you will see that that is how he markets him self, you will understand that this will appeal to non designers. Just look what he is doing l”The ability to love” don’t you see that he is confusing this whole thing and he is doing this well for regular public, because they will understand this as a big joke. But you professional will take this very deep, including me. But if you spend time to analyze things and get to know him a little bit better you will see that there is nothing important to listen. He is a busy guy at these days with Yoo selling his Apartments in every United States city. There is a building in NYC there is another one in Miami and so on.. He is in a bigger market so he can say now stupid things. He has his Big Name but if he will be talking more like this than I’m sure mostly his product fans will turn off.

Anyways, just don’ take this to serious.

I think as designers we must question, always question what we do. Be honest with your self first and others second. I wonder if many of the designers who have posted on this could really say that anything they have designed has really been of any benifit to society. Fact; design firms exist to give a competidive edge to manufacturers. i.e raising the profit margin of wealthy business men.
It is true that there is a need for helpfull non harmful solutions, but we live in a capatilist global economy. Who will finance these designers working on non profit solutions??? will you work for free?
We don’t need more objects to counter balance the bad objects. The solution is less creation not more creation.
This year the NASA Mars probe on the surface of Mars, in the same month an unknown Amazon tribe was “descovered”. Being human in 2008 A.D is being human in 2008 B.C.
We are not the things we own.
As designers we should always question the status quo. Even of the design industry. Or maybe we should air drop that “lost” tribe a Juicy Salif ??

In my point of view, he is an artist more than a designer.
Never say never.

I think you maybe misunderstand Starck is what the problem is. I personally find his general style ugly and thus don’t think we’re missing much, but it would help to watch his talk at the TED conference to get some idea of how he thinks and maybe understand that it’s no so severe after all. I happen to think that fashion is in a sadly 70s retro we don’t know how to do anything interesting (non crappy) phase. I suppose design might be in a lull too. Though yes, there is some good stuff going on in some quarters for sure. He also may have been trying to emphasize that we should look to molding ourselves. I think he’s just in the place in life. I am 34 and already got to that place, but then I’ve never had any particular success in life to distract me.

Design has nothing to do with Mr. Stark. What Mr. Stark does, is called “de luxe” product conception… and money.

Design is something else, far beyhond what he knows, and is able to do.

Shut up, Mr. Stark.

At most a Flash in the Pan !
That is if you are stupid !

At most a Flash in the Pan !
That is if you are stupid !

yeah well nobody forced him to do what he did.

if you can’t generate good ideas anymore mr.starck that’s where you’re dead, weather it be luxury design or design for the 90% or the 10%, it is still fully alive and ppl are running their lives with it. design never dies, design changes form and evolves , maybe our material world will come to a halt but design transfers itself into digital, yes, i believes multimedia is actually the future of industrial design, plus, there are zillions of spots where design has not touched yet, one of them being ROBOTICS.

it’s good to hear you’re getting retired mr.starck because there are plenty young talented people out there ready to take your place as soon as you’re out of your kingdom chair.

saying these words won’t grab you any attention, you only loose respect among designers.

“It’s also somewhat elitist, most of the worlds people can barely afford mass production, never mind Craftwork, so this idea is really just the latest fashion focused on the top 2%.”

It’s rather quite the opposite. Most of the “worlds people” only have access to craftwork. In France (Starck’s country), the “Board of Craftmanship” (Chambre de Métiers et de l’Artisanat) is kind of France’s first corporation. In developing or underdeveloped countries, as you say, people don’t have access to mass market, but they still have furniture and kitchenware! Those are craftwork. Wood or ceramic figurine, ponchos, kitchenware made of bamboo… I could go on for ever.

If the ongoing interest of stuff like Etsy, Ponoko or the MakerBot keep rising as they currently do, the designing process and the way people see creation could shift to a new paradigm.

Philippe is an artist, a man who can give a different look at anything simply because he sees different and think different, he may as most accomplish person have come at the full circle and perhaps sees his own accomplishment as only a steps into what he will become. Way to many envious with pale talent to even one day hope to be Mr Stark.