Lessons from the Archive: Still Relevant 50 Years Later

Abstract

Human interaction and sustainability represent huge concepts impacting design practice in multiple disciplines. Because of this impact on design practice, the conversations around these concepts is critical to the profession. The discipline of Industrial design in the making of objects has a rich history of applying these guiding principles, while by comparison graphic design in the making of communications has more recently started to address some of these concepts. This paper highlights bits of conversation from present to 50 years ago about the role of human interaction and sustainability in industrial and graphic design. For the contemporary designer it is important to recognize and embrace these ideas, so that the next generation of designers do not have to rediscover them.