I think that good designers must always be avant-gardists, always one step ahead of the times,” he said in a speech to the Braun supervisory board in 1980. “They should – and must – question everything generally thought to be obvious. They must have an intuition for people’s changing attitudes. For the reality in which they live, for their dreams, their desires, their worries, their needs, their living habits. They must also be able to assess realistically the opportunities and bounds of technology.
Dieter Rams / Selector for 25/25 - Celebrating 25 Years of Design : - Design/Designer Information
opportunities & bounds of technology …hmm
To me it means, designers should be capable of dealing with opposing constraints of technology. In order to do that, you need to be able to sketch with technology, old and new.
As obvious and easy as it sounds, it is not as common in the design community..as i am discovering. there are hordes of designers who shy away from understanding the bounds of technology and instead choose to live in the fantastic world of imagination.By doing that, I feel, that they are guilty of the similar behavior that most engineers exhibit, that of refusing to see the opportunities of technology.
