Ignorant Design – Exploring a Constructive Conceptual Field

Under the heading of ‘ignorant design’, students at the HfG Offenbach have explored the self-image, challenges and possibilities of design. The starting point of this project was to achieve an expanded, constructive, attentive and considerate understanding of design through a different conceptual approach. The focus was on the principle of ‘ignorance’. To what extent can design be ignorant? What happens when this is the case? What or to whom is ignorance expressed? Who exactly is ignorant? The designers? The users? Authorities that have the potential to regulate (‘politics’)? This undoubtedly raises questions: Is bad design necessarily ignorant? Or vice versa?

When attempting to categorise design as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, it is noticeable that they are of little help due to their severe limitations. Neither in terms of understanding design itself. Nor in terms of how it could be done differently, i.e. how a ‘bad’ design could be transformed into a ‘good’ one. The conceptual information required for this is hardly sufficient. In common parlance, ‘bad design’ is often equated with ‘ugly’, i.e. it tends to refer to visual, external appearances and does not go into enough depth.

The situation is similar with term surrogates such as ‘stupid’ (idiotic, dorky) design - there is an albeit subtle, but nonetheless obvious ableism here. Words such as ‘stupid’ and ‘idiotic’ were for a long time medical terms used to describe intelligence quotients or mental performance, but over time were used in a derogatory way. The use of these words as insults can have an offensive effect on some people and contribute to the marginalisation of people with disabilities. This is because prejudice, discrimination or degradation of people is also conceptually perpetuated, which can contribute to reinforcing existing prejudices and stereotypes (about people or issues).

In the winter semester 2023/24, a group of 33 students at HfG Offenbach (Supervision: Prof. Dr. Tom Bieling) got to the bottom of the phenomenon of design ignorance. Different forms and phenomena were formulated and tested together, in groups or separately. The predominantly theoretical, discursive, but also practical exploration was deliberately critical. The aim of the course was, on the one hand, to sharpen the students’ ability to analytically and argumentatively analyse the various thematic spectrums of design. On the other hand, the methodological transfer of knowledge and thought was intended to help clarify the scope of argumentation in design processes.

To this end, they will dealt with different forms, things and media of critical articulation – reading, writing, photographing, posting, discussing and designing. This resulted in texts, cartographies, a photo safari, a website (www.ignorantdesign.de), thematic clusters and categories, a logo, stickers, an Instagram account (@ignorantes_design) and event concepts. The photos shown on the website or on insta are from the educational ethnographic exploration phase and were taken by the project participants in and around Offenbach.