CONCLUSION

In Charlotte and Peter Fiell’s ‘Design of the 20^th Century’, the value of ideas in design are rationally, relatively and profoundly explained but not quantified through hierarchy[1].  

The death of the good idea is not a quantifiable thing; taste is far too personal an affair, and money with which to polish an idea, far too impersonal.

The ‘big’ ideas involved in celebrations and events management have led to a British Olympics situation where something like punk, which was invented for the purpose of anti-establishmentarianism, has been used against its original will. Idea manipulation is itself an invisible cultural art form which involves everybody:  no artwork from any field could exist without an art world, and no art world could exist without a world full of artists and non-artists.

Whether one is more culturally valued or not –Damien Hirst selling more London 2012 exhibition tickets than Leonardo Da Vinci’s London 2012 show, hints at a paradigm- modern concepts and traditional skill are two very different idea bases. Simply liking both will not merge the gap; although the good and the bad are a lot easier to merge, particularly in a contemporary, liberal world. Originality and ideas are equally very different, originality coming from many ideas: it is a chicken and egg relationship but of which deliberately ‘bad’ i.e. pop, naïve, kitsch or commercial (see appendices two and three) is the ugly lovechild. We love the underdog and we love to challenge our perceptions of what beautiful really is.

Deliberately overexposed ideas are not for the purpose of passive acceptance; the ‘good’ are fresh, new visual concepts which cleverly deny monopolies of moral purity, and politically but also culturally bond the lesser abundant countries with the more economically powerful.

A good idea reverses ‘hyper-institutionalisation’ so that the uncultured can learn rather than being left behind and the guarantee of formal features as such and such an aesthetic is bent so that an image is relevant to real-life not just made-up modern rules. A great idea is often better the second time around; and really good advertising proves this by being of absolutely no threat to the future. Work which wavers on the border of being art and design is culturally clean because it is socially central not above, and merely sells the idea of new identities to the masses.

The best is as honest and pure as low art gets; it isn’t priceless or worthless because it has an explainable price and unexplainable worth.

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[1] Styling is concerned with surface treatment and appearance –the expressive qualities of a product. Design, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with problem solving –it tends to be holistic in its scope and generally seeks simplification and essentiality. During economic downturns, functionalism tends to come to the fore while in periods of economic prosperity, anti-rationalism is apt to flourish.

Design is not only a process linked to mechanised production, it is a means of conveying persuasive ideas, attitudes and values about how things could or should be according to individual, corporate, institutional or national objectives.

Perhaps the most significant reason for diversity in design, is the general belief that, despite the authority and success of particular design solutions, there is always a better way of doing things.