What Do Feral Children and Fairytale Mythologies Have To Do With Design?
Everything.
Yup it's all interrelated. The problem addressed in a Feral Child deals with how the human brain and psychology structures language and make sense of the world. Fairy tale mythologies reflect a culture and society's values, traits demonized or made sacred, similar threads between various versions, and transformation of interpretations throughout history. Design deals with human interaction (i.e. a product, a chair, a remote control), and communication (i.e. magazine layouts, films, billboards, commercials). So ultimately a designer is a myth maker.
When fashion designers decide to design little girl's clothes in pink they further propagate the "pink for girl" myth. While pink does not inherently hold any meaning anymore than blue or gray or fuschia does, our culture have come to associate pink with girls. This was not so before World War II. In fact during Renaissance times blue was associated with girls as paintings of the Virgin Mary often depicted her in blue robes (as coincidentally it was the most precious and expensive color made out of the rare Lapis Lazuli stone for Ultramarine paint, thereby being reserved only for important figures of the Bible).
The findings by psychologists and linguists learned from a Feral Child begs the question of how does one firstly design a better society where neighbors might be more responsible for each other, and not allow something like this to happen. Secondly, if a child constructs a world from the moment they are born, and an interpretation of this world is derived from their experience, then what sort of world does one impart with a new human being? And how can the public school system better educate a youngster not just to be a good citizen but an actualized self?
I don't claim to have the answers, I'm merely making a point that these issues are related to the design of our everyday lives: of life systems, linguistic structures, what we believe to be true, permanent, or possible. If blue and pink are myths, then could other things in our lives be as well? Could our beliefs about our own capability to do something positive about our environmental problem also a myth? That while the problems are real, could it be that the belief "it's too late" a myth as well?
Lastly, I don't claim that designers have the answers either, only that psychologists devising a therapy strategy, teachers creating their curriculums, and storytellers crafting their fairytales are in a way designers too.
NOTES: I learned about pink from Richard Keyes, my color theory professor, however there are some threads on-line discussing this topic:
Yup it's all interrelated. The problem addressed in a Feral Child deals with how the human brain and psychology structures language and make sense of the world. Fairy tale mythologies reflect a culture and society's values, traits demonized or made sacred, similar threads between various versions, and transformation of interpretations throughout history. Design deals with human interaction (i.e. a product, a chair, a remote control), and communication (i.e. magazine layouts, films, billboards, commercials). So ultimately a designer is a myth maker.
When fashion designers decide to design little girl's clothes in pink they further propagate the "pink for girl" myth. While pink does not inherently hold any meaning anymore than blue or gray or fuschia does, our culture have come to associate pink with girls. This was not so before World War II. In fact during Renaissance times blue was associated with girls as paintings of the Virgin Mary often depicted her in blue robes (as coincidentally it was the most precious and expensive color made out of the rare Lapis Lazuli stone for Ultramarine paint, thereby being reserved only for important figures of the Bible).
The findings by psychologists and linguists learned from a Feral Child begs the question of how does one firstly design a better society where neighbors might be more responsible for each other, and not allow something like this to happen. Secondly, if a child constructs a world from the moment they are born, and an interpretation of this world is derived from their experience, then what sort of world does one impart with a new human being? And how can the public school system better educate a youngster not just to be a good citizen but an actualized self?
I don't claim to have the answers, I'm merely making a point that these issues are related to the design of our everyday lives: of life systems, linguistic structures, what we believe to be true, permanent, or possible. If blue and pink are myths, then could other things in our lives be as well? Could our beliefs about our own capability to do something positive about our environmental problem also a myth? That while the problems are real, could it be that the belief "it's too late" a myth as well?
Lastly, I don't claim that designers have the answers either, only that psychologists devising a therapy strategy, teachers creating their curriculums, and storytellers crafting their fairytales are in a way designers too.
NOTES: I learned about pink from Richard Keyes, my color theory professor, however there are some threads on-line discussing this topic:
posted by Zoey at 1:00:00 AM
2 Comments:
Wow.. That's fascinating info about pink. I had no idea.
(Btw, you need to trim the trailing slash from your links.. They don't work with the extra slash at the end.)
Thanks for letting me know! Hope it works now :)
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