Comprehensive Design
Buckminster Fuller’s true identity and accomplishment is blurred by the halo of visionary put behind him by baby boomers. During my movement days, and hanging out with 50- and 60-something types, “Bucky� is invoked in vague, nearly mythic ways as being beyond industrial beyond design and brimming over with ideas. Beyond the geodesic dome, most people don’t know what he did and have a hard time describing his thinking. So, when I was reading From CounterCulture to Cyberculture, this was my first direct encounter with his thinking.
In Ideas and Integrities, Fuller describes the “Comprehensive Designerâ€? a designer who “would not be another specialist, but would instead stand outside the halls of industry and science, translating [their work] into tools for human happiness.” They would be
harvesters of the potentials of the realm . . . an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist . . . [they would change the world through a] comprehensive anticipatory design science.
David Armano talked about the new creative mind on his blog and at IxDA. His new creative mind fires on more general pistons: curious, analytical, expressive, and sensual. It’s also focused on marketing.
What I like about Fuller’s description (and this paragraph is as good as it gets in the essay, the rest is pretty rough going stylistically), is that is provides some guidance for sharpening one’s saw. It’s got gritty words like inventor and mechanic implying sweat, iteration, failure, and wonky behavior and interests. It leads with artist, though, so there’s a higher aesthetic calling (and without getting dragged into the narrative trap of advertising — does everything really have to be a narrative sensibility?).
Best, though, is “objective economist” and “evolutionary strategist”. They ground our work in serving some purpose — a desire realized in the marketplace or a basic need. It implies psychology and empathy and is “anticipatory” a closing call to experiment and go beyond the basic data of the here and how.
I get worried that a lot of the calls for generalism will dilute our respect for, understanding of, and ability to recognize expertise. This is frustrating for designers who must take opinions from everywhere and at a level marketing strategists and technologists rarely have to suffer. But, from designer side of the table, there’s a risk of losing our edge — what should we get good and stay good at? How do sharpen that new creative mind? Where do we go deep? The Fuller line feels like a good charge.