Interview with Dr. Markus Köck

How do stars and design classics “arise” in the field of design?

Markus Köck is looking for the first time at prominence in the field of design for the German-speaking region and offers a glimpse in 13 publications over a period of almost six decades and in his work with rare source texts from Finland, Japan and the USA.

In your book, you refer to a statement by Charles Eames from 1960, in which he claims that the personality of the designers too often stands between the intended message and the recipients and pleads for a return to more anonymous design solutions (p.223). What would you say about it from today's perspective?

We not only need “a return to more anonymous design solutions,” but also more personal inconspicuousness. We must learn to be more humble and from now on — not just in the future — be satisfied with having done enough to ensure a future that is still worth living for all. We must take the current and future real scarcity of resources seriously and can no longer accept the mass-industrial overcrowding and littering of our world as a given or unavoidable. This means no longer practicing the profession we pursue for self-fulfillment in the sense of public reflection. It can no longer be about designing with a view to the future auratization of our designs (see Zitzlsperger 2021), being in the front row at the next IF or Red Dot Awards (either in Cannes, at the ADC, on the occasion of Siggraph or at Ars Electronica), but about doing our work responsibly. We are in the midst of a dramatic change in our living conditions, for which we ourselves are partly responsible, and the question of a livable future was raised as early as 1966 in the context of the Eames statement you quoted: Because Allison writes that it is an enormous responsibility on us designers to create a habitable environment for civilized humanity (Allison 1966:29, quoted from: Köck 2021:222). As early as 1960 (before the Club of Rome and before Papanek), Eames painfully pointed out the problems of our profession, with which we still stand in our way today:

We strive for at least public or even artistic recognition of our designs when it comes to functional fulfilment...

and are constantly striving for stylistic originality so as not to get lost in the competitive environment (as a service provider, we are, of course, subject to brand strategic considerations and goals of our clients in a mass industrial environment). And why do we do that? Because we created these systems of recognition ourselves and thus set an idea of standards of exemplary and desirable values in the world. This pressure to be noticed was intensified to the extreme with the shift of publication options onto the individual himself — in the sense of “active [r], intentional competition for attention” (Reckwitz 2015 in: www.soziopolis.de). But it must also be possible in the future to exist as a designer in a parallel world to celebrities and therefore not be professionally outclassed — by making the disappearance our role model without us putting it through the back door onto a new winner's podium.

A prize for the most inconspicuous designers would be the most absurd possible consequence...

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In your opinion, what is the difference between stars in the traditional sense and star designers? What makes them stand out? (P.145)

The difference is second-tier prominence. In my dissertation, I am referring to Ludes (in: Faulstich und Korte 1997:91), who combines conventional star status with special personal, body-related abilities that cannot be maintained indefinitely. In the professional form of designers, designing itself is a trained skill that is intended to enable artifacts to be given shape. When these artifacts are submitted to competitions and awarded prizes, they become prominent: The artifacts are honored for their design quality and are themselves in the limelight, in whose glow the designers can then bask in. The person behind the artifact is therefore initially characterized by nothing other than (the) excellent artifact (s).

From the very first award, designers then start to distinguish themselves in the eyes of others through the collection of prizes won, and this form of social recognition from outside — conceptually fixed as reputation — is not something they would have personal influence over (the “conventional” stars, by the way). Honorary prizes for lifetime achievements are only awarded directly to people — such as the Lifetime Achievement Medal from the London Design Festival: “This award honours an individual who has made significant and fundamental contributions to the design industry over their career” (Londondesignfestival.com) [online] https://www.londondesignfestival.com/medals [05.09.2022]. In this case, too, a jury will decide on these significant and significant contributions in the field of the design industry and that cycle can begin with classification as “emerging talent” — this is also referred to as a spiral of prominence in research (see Wippersberg 2007).

Star designers are therefore only recognizable as people by their externally acknowledged professionalism in design issues — if it is the result of jury meetings that have assessed the results of their work and then fix this in prizes. This is in contrast to celebrities due to personal abilities such as an unmistakable voice, special writing or acting talent, mastery of an instrument or sporting talent — with which others are actually knocked directly (measurably) out of the field in competitions or by which people are personally affected (fans). However, when the term “just like that” is used in (specialist) leaf forests, it is even further removed from a comprehensible scale than in any officially announced competition.

In your opinion, why could it be that the standards as to whether something becomes a design classic or not are so different? (P.150)

Because it — thankfully! — cannot give an agreement of general validity as to how this would be measured. Attempts to “influence manufacturers and consumers by promoting exemplary product design” (Bräuer 2004: preface) have not only concerned the German Werkbund since the beginning of the 20th century.

The question of such exemplary character could not be answered meaningfully either in the German Product Customers or in the German Product Books or in the expression “Good Form”...

In its journalistic flattening, it becomes even less so. The design classic takes up this irredeemable claim and is constantly reinterpreted by all publishing actors out there in good tradition (...) by elevating artifacts to “cult objects” under their own authority of interpretation. The term persists as a constant that you can refer to and use. The acceptance of such a pre-canonical interpretation, an offer of meaning, is authenticated and reinforced by the journalistic resumption elsewhere (see Bonta: 1982) — in a highly uncertain and non-transparent, non-public negotiation process which, in the rarest cases, is likely to be based on personal agreement on shared standards. Breuer quite rightly described the so-called “modern classic” in her eponymous publication in 2001 as an invention — whose “eternal relevance” will probably celebrate happy origins for a long time to come.

Can you briefly summarize what is the difference between everyday design and star design for you?

This is (only) seemingly easy and first of all a question of definition: We see nothing here but attributions that are assigned to artifacts. Their difference lies in the linguistic orientation of designs as defined by the attributers, but also by the designers in the draft. What is that supposed to mean? When I design something under the primacy of functional fulfilment (understood as a prosthesis or tool — “everyday design”) with which users can master part of their everyday life, this usually results in artifacts which — understood as a counterimage to “star design” — do not present their design as a monstrance.

They do nothing but function unobtrusively and without problems.

It is no coincidence that the ideologue of good form comes to mind, without this being able to even begin to be subjected to criticism. The “star design”, on the other hand, can be reduced to the shortest denominator if we imagine the “l'art pour l'art” approach in design: with designs that celebrate their designed presence more than their benefits, in which sacrifices are sacrificed in the fulfilment of their function (s) of pure form — I exemplified this in my dissertation using the example of Juicy Salif. But be careful! If we imagine the functional space of artifacts as expanded, then the (then only seemingly) functionless design also fulfills a (now social) function in the game of social positioning: By demonstrating to the environment with the purchase of such “functionless” artifacts that one becomes such a senseless (?) is able to issue money; this brings us directly to Bourdieu and Veblen.

Would you rather describe unhighlighted design as everyday design or as anonymous design and why?

According to my findings, the term “anonymous design” can no longer be used because none of the artifacts described as anonymous is truly unknown, unnamed or nameless — and therefore anonymous. Anonymous design is only made possible by highlighting it as such. That is why the term everyday design — or everyday design — is more appropriate. My reason then also lies in the very commonality that, in contrast to the extraordinariness embodied by star design, is characterized by product personalities who strive less to be noticed ;-)

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Dr. Markus Köck

Design theorist, product designer, visual artist and lecturer. Freelance since 1996. Education: Triathlon at HBKsaar from first year to doctorate. Studied product design (with Harald Hullmann; 1989 diploma 1994), visual arts in the field of photography/new media/installation (with Ulrike Rosenbach and Tamas Waliczky; 1996—1998); admitted to advance the doctoral process in 2012. Award with one of the four doctoral fellowships awarded annually by the Hans Böckler Foundation for researchers over forty years — from 2017—2019. Has received his doctorate in design theory since 2020 (under Prof. Dr. Rolf Sachsse).

Working in academic design teaching since 2018 — until today at Macromedia University of Applied Sciences (locations in Stuttgart and Munich): media, communication and information design as well as design theory and design management. 2020 and 2021 lecturer at Hamm-Lippstadt University of Applied Sciences: Design principles in the Electronic Engineering degree program, object and space design in the Computer Visualistics and Design degree program. Since the winter semester 2021/22, a temporary position as a research assistant for design theory and design history at HBKsaar. Long-time member of the DGTF, part of the Executive Board since 2021.

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literature

ALLISON, DAVID HENSEL (1966): Anonymity in Design, Master's thesis at the Department of Art at the University of Iowa Graduate College

BONTA, JUAN PABLO (1982): On the interpretation of architecture. On the ups and downs of forms and the role of criticism
, Berlin: Archibook

BRÄUER, HASSO (2004): Archive of German Everyday Design [DVD], Digitale Bibliothek 56, Berlin: Directmedia Publishing

BREUER, GERDA (2001): The Invention of the Modern Classic. Avant-garde and everlasting relevance, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz Verlag

RECKWITZ, ANDREAS (2015): [online] https://www.soziopolis.de/die-transformation-der-sichtbarkeitsordnungen.html [05.09.2022]

ZITZLSPERGER, PHILIPP (2021): The design dilemma between art and problem solving, Berlin: Hatje Cantz Verlag

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