Video review: Design for Life

Through out the six episodes of Pilippe Starck's Design for Life we are given an insight to Starcks design world. Starck describes himself as a door to creativity, the future and vision. His philosophy is based around how good design speaks of life and how it affects life. He invites armature designers to apply for the chance to work with his design agency. Starck selects twelve applicants and teaches them how they should be questioning everything, every design decision in a product and how their design decisions affect everyone in the future. The fundamental thing which he teaches the applicants is that they are now part of a school of creativity not design and to speak less of design and more about things around us.

In project one the idea behind the project is to recognise how there are too many designs and that we should be thinking about how they are useful and sustainable. Starck believes in demographic design, designing for everyone. 'It is about creating objects that benefit everyone through value, are sustainable and function'. The most important thing that Starck wants in design is sustainability. Throughout project two Starck encourages the applicants to learn about people. 'They need to immerse themselves into the environments of other people to understand there behaviours. Project three sees Starck take a different approach and he decides to give them a generic task to test and develop their way of thinking. He wants the students to learn that his briefs are very broad as for them to be creative and not design. It is crucial that we experience and understand the needs of the people as designers. For Philippe Starck it is important to know every aspect of your design.

Getting inspiration for a design project can come from unusual or normal things, for example, plants nature or living. When it comes to technique it should be kept in mind that simple can be better. At this stage Starck has narrowed down the applicants to four and throughout the fifth episode we learn that as a designer you should always stick with the final idea and always be prepared to change them for an easier manufacturing process. We are given an insight into marketing and the applicants are taught that in order for products to succeed it needs to have a strong branding and marketing statergy. It can be seen through the emotional development of the applicants that there will be struggles and disappointments. They are constantly put down but through all the criticism, it is a learning curve to see who will win.

Starck has again refined the number of applicants, now down to two. The competition is based on the success and development of their projects to result in a winner. Philippe Starck continues to give advice and wisdom about design. The series ended with one applicant being awarded the winner due to her ambition to succeed whilst fulfilling the requirements of the brief.