Promotion: the world is under-designed and over-branded, designer Karim Rashid argued on stage at Design Doha Forum.
Rashid was speaking as part of a panel titled "Branded Futures: Will Our Lives and Our Cities Become Over-Designed"" that formed part of the Design Doha Forum (DDF).
Tackling issues of branding and urbanism and exploring potentially excessive design within everyday life and urban landscapes, the panel also featured Qatari artist Ghada Al Khater and Egyptian architect Shahira Fahmy. The session was moderated by innovation expert Jorge Cerveira Pinto.
The Branded Futures panel tackled issues around branding and urbanism
Rashid, who is one of the world's most recognised industrial designers, said his initial response to the panel's theme was to reject the view that the world is over-designed or in danger of being so. He drew a contrast between functional design and design for its own sake. He gave the example of uncomfortable chairs and shoes and the aeroplane boarding experience ? where business class passengers board the plane first and then "wait for 180 people to pass you by" ? as evidence that there was still too little design thinking taking place.
At the same time, he said, people were walking around in head-to-toe designer brand logos with nothing of substance behind the iconography.
"Simply put the world is under-designed and over-branded," said Rashid. "We're destroying the earth, we're overproducing, we're ov...