HB: Have you seen quite a lot of change over the industry, across the past ten years, say?
PW:I think very much. People, you know, tend to be attracted to trends very quickly, and jump on things, and then those things expire. There is this almost ‘fashion’ element in product design – sometimes that feels very wasteful.
In a way, it feels like there’s just so many moving parts now. And a lot of times these specialists come in, and they really focus on one aspect of it, especially in the US. It’s a little different from Europe. In Europe, you have these almost visionaries, right? All of these brilliant designers that can do a little graphics, can do interiors, can do products, packaging, furniture, whereas, in the US, it’s much more specialist in a way. Like, if you went to school for transportation design, you end up in the car industry. Or, if that doesn’t work out, then you end up doing, like, hot wheels or shoes, you know, so you’re always pigeon holed into these little specialties.
You know, that’s a terrible way, I think, to pursue this opportunity that we have to solve problems for people in today’s day and age. Trust me, all I think about is the amount of problems that are going on, especially in this country. It’s really what industrial and product design is really about. Understanding the problems and the task at the current moment and trying to solve it. This isn’t about me and it’s not about Pentagram, it’s really about making products and being conscious of putting more stuff into the world.
We’ve had mass consumerism lately, and people are starting to finally pay attention, and starting to say: Hey, do I need this? Hey, is this wasteful? So it’s a really fun idea to come into the world now and try to solve those little things. Like, are we doing packaging right? We need to really think about what we’re putting out there, sustainability, materiality, manufacturing – it’s a giant puzzle that we’re putting together in order to put something out in the world. You have to think about this from the initial sketch all the way to the way it’s disposed. I think that’s the opportunity, and I don’t see that being done well at all in the industry at the moment