Design Realities Creativity, Nature and the Human Spirit

Design Realities explores a wide range of topics on creativity, design and spiritual well-being. Using critique, rational inquiry and personal reflection, Stuart Walker looks squarely at our contemporary condition, demonstrates how current assumptions and material expectations are becoming untenable and, most importantly, offers constructive new directions that are feasible, spiritually enriching, and hopeful. Comprising short essays, lyrical pieces, photo studies and longer discourses, this book takes us on a highly readable and enjoyable journey through some of the most pressing issues of our time. The innovative, intuitive format makes these topics readily accessible, while providing much food for thought about the changing nature of creativity in today’s world. Written by a leading thinker in the field, this highly original book offers readers something to ponder, discuss, contest and build upon.

Part 1: Reality 1. As it is 2. A Competitive State 3. Share Price 4. Property 5. Branded 6. Inversion 7. Unbranded 8. Reality 9. Prestige 10. Icarus Falls 11. Sellers All 12. Waste 13. Bypassed 14. Fair Game 15. What else is on? 16. My next fear 17. Time closed 18. A Moment in the Life of a Reed 19. Illusions of forever 20. Local? 21. Burying Your Dead in the Sand 22. Air 23. Carbon 24. Becoming Human 25. Internationalization 26. Craft ’n Kitsch 27. Modern and Traditional 28. Design Think 29. Enough 30. Damage 31. Seeing Part 2: Another Reality 32. How should we live? 33. Moderation 34. Legacy 35. Ashes of Myopia 36. Closest to the Dreaming 37. Fragile 38. Being Alive 39. Nature’s Wisdom 40. Repeated Patterns 41. Profits and People 42. Return to Syros 43. What reward have ye? 44. Atomization 45. Lost 46. Authenticity 47. Change 48. Seriously 49. New 50. The Comb Shop 51. Repair 52. Resurrection 53. Photograph 54. The Human Touch 55. Perspective 56. Art 57. Drive 58. Elevator 59. And more 60. Economy 61. Beyond Protectionism 62. IP 63. Commonality and Originality 64. Secular Society 65. Sacred Time 66. Misreading Religion 67. A Stultifying Dualism 68. Faith 69. Rubens’ Jesus 70. Enculturated Blindness 71. A Christmas Story 72. Mythic Objects 73. Another Reality Part 3: A Future Reality 74. A Wisdom Economy 75. Fair Share 76. Design Rhapsody 77. Spiritual Renewal 78. Cultural Highs and Lows 79. Improving Things 80. Moving on 81. One Manifestation of Wisdom 82. Why 83. After this? 84. A Creative Life 85. Delicate, Evanescent Things 86. Useless Things 87. Dying to Create 88. Live 89. RAW Design 90. Ruination 91. Rejuvenation 92. Things that Endure 93. The Mark Made 94. Handmade 95. Whittling 96. Foraging 97. Artefacts 98. Life 99. Improvisation 100. Progressive Design Praxis

Stuart Walker is Professor of Design for Sustainability and a Director of the ImaginationLancaster design research centre at Lancaster University. His research focuses on design for sustainability; product aesthetics and meaning; practice-based design research; and product design that explores and expresses human values and notions of spirituality. He has written and edited numerous books and his propositional and experimental design work has been exhibited across Canada, in Italy and the UK, including an exhibition at the Design Museum, London. He is Visiting Professor of Sustainable Design at Kingston University, UK, and Emeritus Professor at the University of Calgary, Canada.