Design Your Life - Ellen Lupton

Ellen Lupton, curator of contemporary design of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum did her first exhibition in 1993 at the age of 29 which she called Mechanical Brides and it was a show based on women, machines and technology.

Ellen Lupton along with her twin sister Julia Lupton, recently published a book called ‘Design Your Life’, which is basically a book showcasing photographs on design in ones everyday life. The book started out of a website called designyourlife.org, which was created by Ellen and Julia 5 years ago. The website was basically a place where they would complain about objects that would annoy them and would comment on trends and developments of their interests.

I find Ellen brings out an important point when she refers to the toaster, kitchen computer or the refrigerator. She basically goes on to say that once a great design for a contemporary product has been created and successfully marketed, designers will find some other way to better that particular product as well as re-construct the product to give it a multifunctional purpose. In her view it could mess up the product and take away the purpose the product was originally created for. However Ellen finds in some cases that the reconstructed product can also be better for the consumer when it comes to elements such as price, quantity, wastage, speed, etc. A good example of this is the square role of toilet paper she talks about which discourages wastage, thus becoming cost effective.

In my opinion, I think what Ellen is trying to get across is that keeping a design simple and direct to the point is most often the best way to go about a design situation. Certain products, when so-called improvements are made to them, raise the cost of the product, and that could deter consumers from purchasing them.

Ellen goes on to talk about the Visibility Principle. It’s my understanding that the basic idea behind this principle is that if the work or design is in front of you, i.e. in your face, it gets done which causes an increase in productivity.

I personally found Ellen’s take on the roller bags to be very interesting. The fact that even though the idea of putting wheels on a bag is a fantastic idea, the behaviour and mindset of the consumer using it changes. Ellen goes on to say that this is a simple case of good objects, bad behaviour.

Altogether, this was a fascinating look at a very interesting woman and author on her views on Design in the everyday world.