The empowerment of consumers in a free market society affords us all our dollar votes. However, the balance of this free market scale, originally defined by 18th century economist Adam Smith, implies a level of transparency and knowledge. These days, products which are built to last are undervalued and “Made in USA” claims are no longer the heavyweights they were, much less possible. Now that our society is in deep with China, who manufactures over $280 billion of our products, is it time for us to take a closer look at our values and dollar votes? How will we decide the shape of designs to come? How will we as consumers re-energize our economy to support a healthier American body? 

Consumer Activism

Consumer activism has been part of our history since the boycotts of the Revolutionary War. Through consumer’s choices the “invisible hand” leads us to patronize and invest. Supporting products and services with our patronage is apart of our country’s heritage. However, voting with our dollar has never been more complex. Nearly every product aimed at us with precision comes decked with variables in fine print and a barrage of implications. As our ability to understand our product’s make-up and their respective systems has declined, our means for consciously buying has dwindled away.

If we apply this same activism to the more literal consumption of food we see an analogous battle. Many consumers are becoming more aware of the organic vocabulary and are slowly realizing the impact of ingesting these manufactured goods into their own bodies. Agribusiness will face real growing pains as book titles like “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan slowly bend our mainstream mentality. Robert Kenner’s recent film, Food, Inc., also takes direct aim at transparency in agribusiness. In parallel, we must consider this ingestion in a wider view of products. How complete is the public’s knowledge of the impacts of the products we support? Are we as buyers the well-versed nutritionist or the kid in the candy store with little knowledge of our own health? As we put a close eye on each dollar spent in today’s economy, the demand is up on values and knowledge. Each dollar counts.    

Disconnection to Manufacturing

The consumer’s ability to vote for product systems properly has been nullified by their detachment from making goods. To understand how our stuff is made requires a full understanding of its material sourcing and manufacturing processes, shipping and distribution channels, and where it ends up. As it stands, life cycle analysis is not for the common consumer. Most of people’s time at the point-of-purchase is dedicated to figuring out gangly new interfaces, not an analysis of shipping routes and raw material mines. To highlight the disconnection between consumers and manufacturing processes, we find programs like How It’s Made, on The Discovery Channel, a fantastic spectacle. To many, this is the closest they’ll get to understanding the processes of making everything we own, to scale. Edward Burtynsky shows how it’s no Gepetto hammering away making our stuff. He paints a rarely seen picture.

Burtynsky, the acclaimed documentarian of Manufacturing Landscapes, is not out to ruin our comfort with buying our cozy products. He’s a photographer who wants to honestly depict the reality of the modern machine. Within the space of consumerism literature and publicity, Burtynsky’s approach is unique; his open narrative quietly emphasizes the potency of scale. He is one of many making the profound point that we have a very limited understanding of the resources it takes to make our products, how many countries and stakeholders were involved, and where our products go after their planned obsolescence. We must consider how such large and complex systems effects our free market scale where knowledge and transparency are key.  It’s oddly enlightening to find anything like the Footprint Chronicles, an honest window into Patagonia’s process of making. We must work towards a new intimacy with making. While Big Box retailers continue slashing prices with a wink consumers need to think twice about their vote. 

Mainstream vs. Underground

More than a third of Americans shop at Walmart each week. Alongside this we notice its ever burgeoning counter force, the world of handmade craft. Marking this industry’s progress are web communities like Supermarket and Etsy. Only started in 2005, Etsy now has over 200,000 sellers who bring in over $12 million worth of goods per month. Documenting this recent explosion is Handmade Nation. They captured the movement late last year with their film and book release telling a new story of our roles as both consumers and producers. It exposes a different side to product development, the punk rock side.

As craft fairs pop up in gymnasiums, warehouses and small boutiques around the nation the movement appears as a rebellion. This time consumers are introducing something new to buying: community. The new-found value of having an authentic understanding of a product and a relationship with its maker is like a slap in the face. Designers in this realm thrive off of networking and joining into a collective understanding of their resources. Handmade Detroit shows a vibrant online hub for exchanging ideas, skills, resources, and events. This exchange has allowed the craft world to move beyond an incestuous offering of kitchy stationary and cutesy flowery cut-and-sew products. These communities can now develop structures that allow for more complex processes and advance as the industry becomes more robust. The makers can nimbly select materials that accurately align with buyer’s most current values such as sustainable materials or local produce. Ultimately, this helps refine the creative expression of individual communities, making beautifully unique culture.

With new values of community and hand craft, Hartmut Esslingers’ original expression of emotional design through Apple’s early products is sure to evolve into something more transparent, connected, and hands-on. 

Design Within Reach

Shifting into a paradigm of consciousness means a tough learning curve. With more values infiltrating our systems of “voting” for products consumers will look for simpler, more transparent solutions. Sure, language systems will need to be invented to communicate a product’s social and ecological impacts (certifications and “nutritional facts” labels for products). However, today’s handmade craft world shows how it’s more than feeling good through effective communication and marketing. Product systems which sustain will ultimately be made through an involvement in the community and an intimacy with the creative process.

Being involved in a community of commerce is about personal relationships with the people involved, the stakeholders. Who’s behind the process? What motivates them? Strong product development companies and vendors know the value of these connections and spend big on fine-tuned service and sales. Similarly, we still realize the value of that ashtray we made in art class for our parents (smoking or non) and its endless value, a stamp in time.  Owning things that are connected to strong relationships is of the highest value. The tighter our list of stakeholders becomes, the more we gain an understanding of the process and invest in our communities. We may see how development systems working on this community scale can more efficiently customize solutions to its needs and promote its own expression. As consumers understand their products more, stakeholder’s values of fair trade, worker’s rights, and local manufacturing will be heightened.

With the typical scale of production, involving the consumer in the creative process oftentimes means more SKU’s, colorways, mass customization, or a complex aftermarket. However, as we grow closer to the process, consumers will be offered more personalized solutions and empowered to adopt the DIY movement. In a struggling economy we’ll realize great design and powerful dollar votes by enabling communities to access the creative design process. Ponoko is one example of an enabling product system that allows an online community to submit their own designs using laser cutting as its medium. Places like 3rd Ward and The Workroom can now get more traction as people in their community jump in and get designing. Systems like these promote an collective and accessible process which naturally fulfills its needs and potential, starting to look very much like an open source network.

Considering these ideas of transparency and craft, the mentality of “good design” will be more accessible for common consumers to grasp. They can start to vote for products which they understand, enabling them to invest in products which align with their values. In just a couple generations, the ancient tool of design has been refined for making products on massive scale that encompasses many cultures. Reapplying the same tool with a bit of consciousness may just help us navigate through the economic wasteland. Maybe we can spend less time moping about the economy in Walmart, and instead realize our own resources and creativity. The US is rebranding itself, spread the word.