good design essay

What is "Good" Design? A quick look at Dieter Rams' Ten Principles.

What does "good" design look like and are there any instructions on how to create it? Dieter Rams, legendary industrial designer, who's "less but better" approach inspired a generation of products, is famed for writing the Ten Principles of Good design.

Dieter Rams in Review

• 1932 Dieter Rams was born in Wiesbaden Germany in 1932. He was strongly influenced by his grandfather who was a carpenter. Prompted by his friend he applied for a job at the german electrical products company Braun in 1955.
• 500 During his 40 years at Braun, Dieter Rams produced and oversaw 500 innovative products as chief of design.
• Eco Friendly Dieter Rams is famously one of the first designers who strived to be environmentally friendly before it was popular. He believed "design can and must maintain its contribution towards protecting and sustaining the environment."

What's the story?

In the late 1970s, Dieter Rams was becoming increasingly interested in the world of things that surrounded him – “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colours and noises.” As a designer, Rams was aware that he played an important role in the world he was helping create, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design?

Good design is subjective and can't necessarily be measured. However Rams attempted to express what he believed to be the most important principles for design.

Here is a brief overview:

• Good design is innovative
• Good design makes a product useful
• Good design is aesthetic
• Good design makes a product understandable
• Good design is unobtrusive
• Good design is honest
• Good design is long-lasting
• Good design is thorough down to the last detail
• Good design is environmentally-friendly
• Good design is as little design as possible

These principles have become iconic and have inspired designers across the world.

What can I do?

DISCUSS: Can you think of any designs that don't fit Rams' rules? Are they good or bad?

RESEARCH: Find 3 pieces of design that fulfil Rams' 10 Principles. What do you think of them?

DO: Write your own principles for design! Create your own list of what you think makes design good.

Dieter Rams has influenced many designers and creators around the world. Can you think of the most famous creative company that Rams has heavily influenced?

Apple's love of sleek and simple design reflects how they were inspired by the work Rams was doing Braun as a product designer. Many critics have exclaimed that Apple was copying Rams. Rams however believed "it's a compliment that they use the [same] basic thinking about what design can be". Rams has been equally fond of Apples's work and regards them as one of the "few companies that take design seriously".

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Good Design is Humble

Humility and design go hand-in-hand; it’s just in the nature of design. Because of this, it is important to recognize the impact that ego can have on one’s ability to receive feedback, properly attribute success and failure, leverage data to justify decisions, remain open-minded to new ideas, and collaborate with teammates. Designers should strive to be humble in their work and organizations should reinforce this in their cultures.

In my recent essay on design and art , I separated the two practices by discussing their different purposes, data sources, and creative processes. This was a really good exercise for me; it helped me to hone my definition of design. But it also allowed me to come to another important conclusion: that good design is humble. I didn’t expect to arrive at this when I started writing the piece, but in hindsight, it makes sense that I would. If we take a close look at the processes and measures of success in design, it becomes abundantly clear that design simply lends itself to humble creation.

Begin by thinking about the perfect design process. Where would you start? Perhaps with a problem. Maybe you’d perform a little research to see if that problem really exists and if it’s worth solving. Then you’d start to gather ideas and inspiration. What solution would you offer to this problem? You’d build something simple; just enough to run a few tests and get some feedback. Validate your assumptions. Then you’d iterate on it. You’d perform more research, gather more inspiration, and start to create something that you could really be proud of. You’d release it to a public audience and, in turn, you’d learn more about your design. You’d iterate again. And again. Rinse and repeat until you have something that you can truly call a product. Now think about this process. Did any of this involve some kind of a divine talent? Or would it be more accurately described as a calculated, creative, and humble approach to problem solving? I’ll put my money on the latter.

The Importance of Humility

Humility in design has always been important to me; I’ve baked it into my personal design philosophy as the most important quality that a designer can possess. But this was not the result of some kind of enlightenment that I experienced. Rather, when design is practiced correctly, this should come as a logical conclusion. But in some cases, it can be very difficult to find a designer that approaches their work with a humble attitude. Many seem to be overrun with the idea that through their own training, education, experience, or god-given talent, they’re able to always produce the most incredible designs.

Alexander is among the world’s leading designers. Achieving this prestige takes talent others can only dream of. Combined with bona fide commitment Alexander’s designs win award after award. His talent is rare.

That’s a direct quote from a Creative Director’s portfolio, where he speaks about himself in the third person. I find this problematic because, aside from the fact that this individual would be very difficult to work with, the introduction of this type of ego into the workplace alters the ways in which teams and individuals create. Why test your design when you have the expertise to know that it will work? Why perform user research when you already know everything there is to know about design? Why listen to the other guy’s idea when you know that you’re the more qualified designer? Decisions start to be made based off of intuition, opinion, or perceived aptitude. And when you think about design in this way, it kind of makes sense to adopt these practices. After all, why would you test a design if you just knew that it would work? Why waste the time and resources when you could be moving on to something else instead?

If there’s anything that design has taught me, it’s that my assumptions, while generally well-founded, are almost always wrong. No matter how much of an expert I become, I will never be able to represent the collective mass that is a user base. This is why humility in the design process is so important. It can be tempting to think that after going through a design program or gaining a certain amount of experience, we’re qualified to make design decisions based on intuition or expertise. And in a certain capacity, I would say that’s true. Intuition and personal experience do play major roles in design at times. But at the end of the day, intuition can never replace the value of a user test. This is because the designer is not designing for themselves; they’re designing for the user. It’s simply in the nature of design: whenever you’re creating for someone else, the creation can’t be about you. And as such, designers must take a humble approach to design, or risk being handicapped by their own egos.

Feedback and Emotional Attachment

I recently fell into a conversation with a designer who was creating a new calculator app. He felt that the standard Casio numerical keypad layout (which had originated in the 1960’s) was broken and outdated. So, he took a new approach and designed his app to have a circular keypad . He pulled some research and submitted an article about it to a popular design publication. It’s a special moment for any designer to see their work gain that kind of recognition on a grand scale. But when users started to see the design, their reactions weren’t quite so great.

Sorry, I don’t see the ergonomic benefit of your circular arrangement. The standard ten key arrangement allows the three strongest fingers on your hand access to all the digits very efficiently. The circular layout offers no such advantage, in fact I think it’s at a rather great disadvantage.

That’s a tough thing to hear. I would know, I’ve had my own fair share of direct and honest feedback . But what alarmed me even more was that, when confronted with this feedback, the designer became very defensive and immediately started offering arguments in support of his design decisions. This didn’t just happen once. Any time that someone would criticize the design or the methodologies through which the design was created, the designer would become defensive. And it’s not like this was a junior designer either. It was a 58 year old, college educated, published author with years of experience in design.

This was alarming to me. Even if the designer hadn’t properly collected qualitative feedback when originally creating the design, he was receiving it now. From real users. Why wasn’t he thanking the users and recording their feedback, instead of spending all of his time defending his design decisions over and over again? I see this as a recurring pattern in design. When designers don’t properly research and test their designs (and instead make decisions based on intuition or personal expertise), they’re much more likely to become emotionally attached to their work. After all, it truly came from them; it’s their personal creation, made from their personal opinions and taste. As a result, criticism of this type of design can be seen as a personal attack on the designer’s personal creation, rather than an opportunity to gain valid feedback. But if we think about it, this is the antithesis of design. When a designer creates like this, they’re not designing at all. They’re removing the user from the equation and simply exercising personal creative expression. And that’s not design .

By contrast, when we follow a structured design process and create using external information (like quantitative and qualitative research), it’s much easier to view criticism not as a personal attack, but as an opportunity to improve the design. When an outsider criticizes your design, they may be taking shots at the conclusions of your research or the visual styles that your users liked, but they’re not coming at you personally. Because much more went into the design than you. Sure, you trusted your gut at certain times and let your intuition guide you when appropriate, but you didn’t conceive the design entirely on your own. You gathered feedback, you worked with stakeholders, and you created something in collaboration with others. So when your design gets criticized, it’s not an attack on your personal creation (and thus you). It’s an opportunity to make your creation better. Removing ego and emotional attachment from the design process affords designers the clarity of mind to make decisions that better the product and increase its odds of success.

Attribution of Success and Failure

When we design based on intuition and opinion, we create products that are reflections of ourselves. When these products succeed, we attribute the success to our own genius or talent. And when these products face criticism, we ourselves feel criticized. If our product fails, we may feel that we failed as designers. But good designers don’t seek to create reflections of themselves; they seek to create reflections of their audience. The people that they are designing for. The best designs result not from a deep focus on one’s self, but from a deep focus on one’s audience. In this respect, design can be very humbling.

There are many factors that influence the success or failure of a product. Design is just one of them. Rather than simply attribute the successes or failures of a product to the competency and talent (or lack thereof) of its designer, we should seek to understand why the design succeeded or failed. Did it even have anything to do with the design in the first place? If so, what specific elements of the design had an impact and why? When we design based on intuition and opinion, we deprecate the value of data and the learning opportunities that it affords us. We should always be looking to understand why something worked or why it didn’t, so that we can apply that learning back to our product as much as possible. And the reason why often has very little to do with the designer’s taste or opinion, and very much to do with their ability to understand the product, audience, and business that they are designing for.

Data and Validation

The increasingly accessible nature of data has fundamentally changed the ways in which we design. It is removing negative subjectivity from the process almost entirely. I say negative subjectivity because there will always be elements of design that are subjective, and they should be. For example, visual design will always remain somewhat subjective. There are elements of it that can be tested for usability or KPI performance, but a significant portion also relies on the aesthetic preference of the designer and their fellow stakeholders. That’s totally fine. But the days of design decisions being made according to the opinion of the highest ranking person in the room are coming to a swift end.

Data is the great neutralizer. Matters of opinion need not be solved in the boardroom. We can simply pose the different designs to our users and let them tell us precisely which one is the best, using their behaviors and actions. This is extremely empowering for the designer. We can now understand which design is objectively best and we can measure exactly how our work impacts the businesses and users that we design for. And this is universal; from Junior Designers to Executive Creative Directors, all of our work can be put to the test on a perfectly level playing field. One of the beauties of data is that it does not discriminate based on a designer’s ego or reputation. It is not influenced by status or opinion. It just reports the truth, without bias.

Open-Mindedness

Allowing designers to create their best work, regardless of experience level or reputation, requires an open mind that can sometimes only be afforded to us (or thrust upon us) through hard data. It can be difficult to properly appraise the value of work when we’re constantly taking into account its source. This effect is magnified when elements of innovation are introduced. We’re used to doing things a certain way. And when new concepts are brought to the table, especially by less experienced or educated individuals, it can be tempting to dismiss them. Ego does not help this, especially when one proposed design goes against that of another designer’s.

In this way, humility is the mother of progress and innovation. By allowing our teams to shake things up and put their ideas to the test, we’re able to foster creativity and ensure that innovation isn’t killed at the source, without receiving a proper chance to prove itself. This creates a healthy team dynamic where every individual is granted an equal chance to create something noteworthy; something that will see the light of day. And when the playing field is leveled in this way, political hierarchy and ego go out the window, and teams start working together. That’s when the real innovation begins.

Collaboration and Teamwork

From what I’ve seen, the most innovative and effective designs are those that are created through the close collaboration of multi-disciplinary teams. That is not to say that I’m advocating for design by committee. Rather, I’ve observed that when multiple skilled individuals from diverse backgrounds come together and agree to make something great, they’re able to offer a range of talents and perspectives that are greater in number and magnitude than any single individual could ever possess. The best designs simply don’t come from individuals, or for that matter, egos. They come from teams. They come from collective efforts.

Nothing is more effective at killing collaboration than ego. It builds false and ineffective bureaucratic hierarchies rooted in age-old ideology. It inspires a sense of unhealthy competition, where teammates put themselves before their team and the company. It silences communication, dissolves cooperation, and suffocates innovation. It utterly ruins the work environment. Teams have to be able to work together. If they can’t, they simply won’t be able to uphold even their most basic functions, let alone realize their true potential.

The Designer’s Handicap

Ego represents the greatest handicap that a designer can acquire and the highest risk that a design organization can assume. It possesses the power to slowly poison and render obsolete design cultures that were otherwise exceptional. For this reason, it is my belief that the most important quality that a designer can strive for and an organization can screen for is that of humility.

For designers in the field, I encourage you to take inventory of your understanding for what design is , what it means to be a designer, and how ego is inherently incompatible with design. And for those hiring designers, I encourage you to deeply screen for traces of ego and ensure that there is a cultural fit with every candidate that you hire. It only takes one bad hire to absolutely bleed a team of its essence and effectiveness. As design advances and evolves, it is critical for us to acknowledge the central role that humility plays, or risk letting our egos die in tandem with our careers.

Design is not Art

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by Gordon Harvey

Students often do their best and hardest thinking, and feel the greatest sense of mastery and growth, in their writing. Courses and assignments should be planned with this in mind. Three principles are paramount:

1. Name what you want and imagine students doing it

However free students are to range and explore in a paper, the general kind of paper you’re inviting has common components, operations, and criteria of success, and you should make these explicit. Having satisfied yourself, as you should, that what you’re asking is doable, with dignity, by writers just learning the material, try to anticipate in your prompt or discussions of the assignment the following queries:

• What is the purpose of this? How am I going beyond what we have done, or applying it in a new area, or practicing a key academic skill or kind of work?
• To what audience should I imagine myself writing?
• What is the main task or tasks, in a nutshell? What does that key word (e.g., analyze, significance of, critique, explore, interesting, support) really mean in this context or this field?
• What will be most challenging in this and what qualities will most distinguish a good paper? Where should I put my energy? (Lists of possible questions for students to answer in a paper are often not sufficiently prioritized to be helpful.)
• What misconceptions might I have about what I’m to do? (How is this like or unlike other papers I may have written?) Are there too-easy approaches I might take or likely pitfalls? An ambitious goal or standard that I might think I’m expected to meet but am not?
• What form will evidence take in my paper (e.g., block quotations? paraphrase? graphs or charts?) How should I cite it? Should I use/cite material from lecture or section?
• Are there some broad options for structure, emphasis, or approach that I’ll likely be choosing among?
• How should I get started on this? What would be a helpful (or unhelpful) way to take notes, gather data, discover a question or idea? Should I do research? 

2. Take time in class to prepare students to succeed at the paper

Resist the impulse to think of class meetings as time for “content” and of writing as work done outside class. Your students won’t have mastered the art of paper writing (if such a mastery is possible) and won’t know the particular disciplinary expectations or moves relevant to the material at hand. Take time in class to show them: 

• discuss the assignment in class when you give it, so students can see that you take it seriously, so they can ask questions about it, so they can have it in mind during subsequent class discussions;
• introduce the analytic vocabulary of your assignment into class discussions, and take opportunities to note relevant moves made in discussion or good paper topics that arise;
• have students practice key tasks in class discussions, or in informal writing they do in before or after discussions;
• show examples of writing that illustrates components and criteria of the assignment and that inspires (class readings can sometimes serve as illustrations of a writing principle; so can short excerpts of writing—e.g., a sampling of introductions; and so can bad writing—e.g., a list of problematic thesis statements);
• the topics of originality and plagiarism (what the temptations might be, how to avoid risks) should at some point be addressed directly. 

3. Build in process

Ideas develop over time, in a process of posing and revising and getting feedback and revising some more. Assignments should allow for this process in the following ways:

• smaller assignments should prepare for larger ones later;
• students should do some thinking and writing before they write a draft and get a response to it (even if only a response to a proposal or thesis statement sent by email, or described in class);
• for larger papers, students should write and get response (using the skills vocabulary of the assignment) to a draft—at least an “oral draft” (condensed for delivery to the class);
• if possible, meet with students individually about their writing: nothing inspires them more than feeling that you care about their work and development;
• let students reflect on their own writing, in brief cover letters attached to drafts and revisions (these may also ask students to perform certain checks on what they have written, before submitting);
• have clear and firm policies about late work that nonetheless allow for exception if students talk to you in advance.
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'Design Is One of the Most Powerful Forces in Our Lives'

A new book from   critic   Alice Rawsthorn explains how graphic, product, and interactive design help—and sometimes unintentionally hinder—humans.

“Do you ring a doorbell with a finger or a thumb?” That’s the kind of question Alice Rawsthorn, design critic for The International New York Times , asks when she thinks about design—all design—and the major role designers have in altering our lives.

Her answer, however, reveals a lot about how she thinks of design’s evolution. “The older you are, the likelier you will be to press it with a finger, probably your index finger,” she writes in her latest book of essays, Hello World: Where Design Meets Life . “If you are younger, you may well use a thumb, because it will have been exercised so thoroughly by typing text messages and gunning down digital assailants on game consoles that it is likely to be stronger and nimbler than any of your fingers.”

Rawsthorn cites this and other mundane behavior to show how technology has impacted design and how graphic, product, and interactive design are key in almost everything we experience today. It’s no wonder, then, that when Rawsthorn speaks, people who care about design’s influences listen. I recently exchanged emails with her to learn more about her mission to get the public to think more critically about design.

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“Design is one of the most powerful forces in our lives, whether or not we are aware of it, and can also be inspiring, empowering and enlightening,” she explained to me. 16th-century Welsh mathematician Robert Recorde for example, “invented” the common equals sign when he had tired of writing the words “is equal to” and sought a less onerous way of conveying their meaning. “Choosing a pair of parallel lines of equal length was an inspired solution, and a brilliant example of [graphic] design's power to solve a practical problem,” she wrote. “There are countless other examples of adroitly designed symbols, not all of which were designed from scratch. The digital incarnations of the hashtag and @ symbol are equally successful examples of design appropriation, rather than invention.”

Rawsthorn added, “It always astonishes me that so many people still fail to appreciate those qualities.” Maybe that includes editors at major publications that cover design routinely as part of a larger commercial eco-system. But Rawsthorn’s method is to look at intention and function first and then the commercial benefits second. “As a writer,” she continued, “I find design endlessly fascinating, because it is richly contextualized and constantly changing, forcing me to continually reassess my understanding of it.”

As the title of her book touts, the essays in Hello World: Where Design Meets Life evoke cautious optimism in the ability of designers to do the right thing. “Design should always be in the service of a better life, but, unfortunately, it does not always achieve that objective,” Rawsthorn noted. “We can all think of examples of design projects, even the best intentioned ones, which threaten to make our lives worse rather than better.

“One of the most notorious examples is the design of the ballot cards for the 2000 U.S. presidential election in Palm Beach County, Florida,” Rawsthorn explained. “The design was changed in the interests of clarity and legibility, but proved so confusing to voters that it may well have changed the outcome not only of the vote there, but the entire election.”

Design can empower people, and for Rawsthorn, always striving to make design empowering is the ideal. But she concedes that disempowerment, like the case of the hanging chad, is also a consequence of unintentional factors. “I have yet to meet a designer who wants his or her work to be dysfunctional, dispiriting, demeaning, or disempowering, but sometimes it is,” she said. “Not that it is always their fault. Some design projects prove to be damaging because of the way in which they are applied. The computer virus was originally designed as a self-replicating form of software that could be installed remotely without the user’s knowledge, but it was not intended to be malignant. Quite the contrary. Sadly, though, it proved to be open to abuse and to create destructive viruses.”

Many designers are hard-wired to control their environment, so Rawsthorn accepts that design is often steeped in a yearning for power. “But that does not necessarily make it [malignant],” she noted. “Take an information design project, like a road signage system or a subway map, which is intended to be entirely beneficial by helping us to make sense of our surroundings and guiding us safely and efficiently from place to place, ensuring that we arrive at our chosen destination on time and unharmed. We are controlled by the design of the signage or map throughout that process, but in a benevolent way.”

Whether or not design is benevolent, Rawsthorn is careful not to use the word art to describe it. Her splendid essay "Why design is not—and should never be confused with—art" echoes what the modernist graphic designer Paul Rand said about art as a consequence, not an intention. Rawsthorn believes the notion of “Art = Good, Design = not so good” is an archaic idea; it is, “thankfully, an increasingly derided assumption,” she wrote. “I firmly believe in the individual's right to identify their work as they wish, whether as design, art, craft, anthropology, or whatever. That said, I find the old-fashioned assumption that design is somehow inferior to art to be deeply damaging.

“If you believe in design as a powerful and productive medium that can help to build a better life, it stands to reason that we need the best possible designers to do so,” she continued. “We are not likely to get them if design is seen as so marginal a discipline that its practitioners are eager to reclassify themselves as artists. Also, the richer, more diverse, and [more] inclusive design becomes, the more compelling it will seem, thereby enabling it to attract the high caliber of designers that society needs.”

Hello World covers design as an inclusive practice, so I was interested in how she defines the strength and weakness of today’s logos and marks. “Like all design endeavors, some logos are inherently good, and others inherently bad, depending on the quality of their design,” Rawsthorn wrote. “The specifics vary from case to case, but broadly speaking, if a logo communicates the desired message clearly, ideally engagingly, and—critically—honestly, it can be deemed to be well designed.” Whenever she sees one of Rand’s logos for IBM, ABC, and UPS, for instance, she finds them “invariably clear, engaging, and honest.

“Whereas, when I see the sunflower symbol, with which BP sought to convince us that it is a sensitive, environmentally responsible oil company," she explained, "I think of the tragic consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.”

Rawsthorn acts as design’s agent provocateur, throwing little bombs that unsettle the status quo. Take, for example, the modernist chestnut that form must follow function: I asked her to explain her contrary position that “form no longer follows function,” if indeed design's goal is functionality? “Form can still be considered to follow function for many analog objects, especially ones that are pure forms—like chairs, spoons, or knives—because it is helpful if their physical appearance gives us clues as to how to use them,” she responded.

“But it would not only be unhelpful, but impossible for the form of tiny digital devices like smart phones or tablet computers to follow, or articulate their multiple functions. Instead," she explained, "we find the same clues in the design of their user interfaces and the operating software that enables us to use them. As these digital products become ever more powerful and versatile, design has an increasingly important role to play in enabling us to use them confidently, efficiently and, if we're very lucky, enjoyably.”

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What is Good Design?

Design matters . It enables us to understand, communicate and improve the world around us. When done right, design has the power to improve the everyday lives of users. When done wrong, design can disrupt and frustrate users. As a designer, you have the power to improve the everyday lives of your users if you practice good design .

“You cannot understand good design if you do not understand people.” — Dieter Rams

So, what is good design? Are there any instructions on how to create it? Dieter Rams , a German industrial designer known for his “less but better” approach to design, attempted to answer these questions. Let’s watch.

© Gary Hustwit and Film First, Fair-Use ( Link )

Dieter Rams is considered one of the most influential industrial designers of the late twentieth century. His work has influenced the way most of today's consumer products look and function. Dieter’s iconic work at Braun and Vitsoe touched the lives of millions of people. His design aesthetics championed simplicity , honesty and restraint — which is evident in the products he designed including the Braun coffee maker, shaver, stereo, calculator, speakers, alarm clock and Oral-B toothbrush. In fact, the computer or phone you're reading this on looks the way it does because of Dieter Rams.

In the late 1970s, Dieter Rams became increasingly interested in the state of the world around him — “an impenetrable confusion of forms, colors and noises.” Aware that he was a significant contributor to that world, he asked himself an important question: is my design good design? His answer is expressed in his ten principles for good design.

According to Dieter Rams, good design:

Is innovative.

Makes a product useful.

Is aesthetic.

Makes a product understandable.

Is unobtrusive.

Is long-lasting.

Is thorough down to the last detail.

Is environmentally friendly.

Involves as little design as possible.

These principles have become iconic and have inspired designers across the world. Let’s see each of them in a little more detail.

Good design is innovative. 

The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

Good design makes a product useful. 

A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasizes the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good design is aesthetic. 

The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

Good design makes a product understandable. 

It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

Good design is unobtrusive. 

Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

Good design is honest. 

It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

Good design is long-lasting. 

It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years — even in today’s throwaway society.

Good design is thorough down to the last detail. 

Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the user.

Good design is environmentally friendly. 

Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimizes physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

Good design is as little design as possible. 

Less, but better — because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

We’re inspired by the relevance of the principles above. If you are too, feel free to download our Ten Principles of Good Design Poster to reference or even print and hang on your wall. And don’t worry — we’ve included both a light and dark theme poster, so you can match your personal aesthetics. :)

The Take Away

Good Design enables us to understand, communicate and improve the world around us. When done right, it has the power to improve the everyday lives of users. Dieter Rams’s 10 Principles of Good Design are proof of his minimalist and functional approach to design, but, more than that, they are proof of his professional stand. This is why we can easily make these principles our values, our philosophy of how design — hence, UX design — should be for any product or service.

We, as designers, need to be creative engineers who solve people’s needs and respect the 10 principles:

Good design is innovative. Good design must be useful. Good design is aesthetic design. Good design makes a product understandable. Good design is honest. Good design is unobtrusive. Good design is long-lasting. Good design is consistent in every detail. Good design is environmentally friendly. And, last but not least, good design is as little design as possible.

References and Where to Learn More

Learn more about the power of good design and Dieter Rams’s ideology at Vitsœ .

Watch the exciting documentary film, Rams , by Gary Hustwit and Film First.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

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59 Fashion Design Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best fashion design topic ideas & essay examples, 🥇 most interesting fashion design topics to write about, 📌 simple & easy fashion design essay titles.

• Fashion Design and Famous Designers His character narrative is about the blend of the past and the present as he tries to make his collections more relevant.
• Analysis of Simone Rocha Fashion Designs The designs are inclusive and relate to women’s outer beauty as they bring out a sense of femininity in terms of skin tones, freckles, and skin lines.
• Coco Chanel: Life, Fashion, Designs, Perfume & Facts The places and people that came into Chanel’s life and helped her take the turn of life that brought her the success she achieved include; the magazine “Time 100: The most important people of the […]
• Paris Fashion Design: Christian Dior Brand It was the brand that made women return to the concept of femininity in the middle of the twentieth century. In the 1970, the brand evolved to adjust to the changes in the society.
• Fashion Forecasting and Trends There are a lot of spring tendencies that are widely awaited; however, the designers are most thrilled about the new bottom silhouette.
• Legal Context of Fashion and Design: Trade Dress This is one of the strategies that can often be adopted by designers to defend their rights in court. This is one of the points that can be made.
• The Fashion Show: Famous Designers Feathers were very much in at the latest shows and they certainly add to the movement. There were many very lovely creations and the idea of creating the animal look was more successful than fur.
• The Influences of Fashion Designers Fashion design is a field that entails a lot of activities ranging from creation of designs to the marketing of the finished fashion products.
• Haute Couture: A Fashion Design Only for the Privileged Haute couture and high fashion is a flight of fancy of the best designers around the world. One of the most prestigious events in the world of fashion is the week of high fashion in […]
• Eco-Friendly Design in Contemporary Fashion In this case, fibers are plants that need to be treated during processing; designing and they too require the usage of herbicides, fertilizers, and other chemicals that are hazardous to the environment at large.
• Apparel’s Role in History: Fashion Exhibition and Impact of Historical Events on Design The proposed exhibit will be concentrated on the counterculture fashion and the role of patches in the counterculture. While in the 1960s denim jeans were of simpler fashion and had embroidery and patches as the […]
• Coco Chanel: Profile and Fashion Design In 1910 she was successful in establishing her first millinery shop in Paris from the assistance of her former two boyfriends, a military officer and an industrialist which she branded as Chanel Modes. She launched […]
• Online Shopping Impact on the Fashion & Design Industry In this report, the aim will be to determine the impact of online shopping on the fashion and design industry. The increased profitability of this industry means that the individual firms have the capacity to […]
• Fundamentals of Fashion and Design Through this strategy, the firm will be in a position to design and develop fashion products that align with the customers’ needs and expectations.
• Fashion Designer Jeremy Scott The collection is inspired by the theme of monsters and the unknown future. He is capable of creating new forms and exploiting the most striking concepts.
• Designer Clothing Market in the UK Fashion Retail Industry The fashion industry first started in England after which it slowly spread to the rest of the world.”In the UK and in the United States, the fashion industry has been one of the largest employers”.
• How the Internet Has Transformed Design & Fashion? Lastly and more importantly, the advent of internet has seen to it that there is increased reliability bas well as convenience in online shopping for fashion and design.
• Fashion Designers: Coco Chanel’s Artistic Process This quote is relevant to this essay because it indicates that the experience of clients and their needs guide the work of a fashion artists. This is one of the details that can be identified.
• Spinoff Dynamics and the Spatial Formation of the Fashion Design Industry, 1858-2005
• Fashion Design Education and Sustainability: Towards an Equilibrium Between Craftsmanship?
• Aesthetic Aspects of the Consumption of Fashion Design: The Conceptual and Empirical Challenge
• Art Seen From Outside: Non-artistic Legitimation Within the Field of Fashion Design
• From Early Virtual Garment Simulation to Interactive Fashion Design
• British Fashion Design: Rag Trade or Image Industry?
• Modern Fashion Design Development Using Morphological Characteristics of Hanbok
• Developing Skills of Fashion Design by Augmented Reality Technology in Higher Education
• Review on Development and Application of 3D-Printing Technology in Textile and Fashion Design
• The Glass Runway: How Gender and Sexuality Shape the Spotlight in Fashion Design?
• The Role of Technology Towards a New Bacterial-Cellulose-Based Material for Fashion Design
• Approaching Fashion Design Trend Applications Using Text Mining and Semantic Network Analysis
• Crafting an Antidote to Fast Fashion: The Case of Toronto’s Independent Fashion Design Sector
• Toward AI Fashion Design: An Attribute-GAN Model for Clothing Match
• Closing the Loop: Intentional Fashion Design Defined by Recycling Technologies
• Fashion Variations: Students’ Approaches to Learning in Fashion Design
• Factors Driving Fashion Design Industry: Key Success Factors of Thai Designers’ Brands
• The Piracy and Paradox: Innovation and Intellectual Property in Fashion Design
• The Language of Fashion Design: Principles Every Fashion Designer Should Know
• Development of an Intelligent Data-Driven System to Recommend Personalized Fashion Design Solutions
• When East Meet West: The Oriental Influence on Fashion Design Nowadays
• Interactive Multimedia-Based Animation: A Study of Effectiveness on Fashion Design Technology Learning
• Firm Entry and Institutional Lock-In: Global Fashion Design Industry
• Fashion in the Globalized World and the Role of Virtual Networks in Intrinsic Fashion Design
• The Use of VR for Collaborative Exploration and Enhancing Creativity in Fashion Design Education
• Based on the Perspective of Sustainability, the Characteristics of Upcycled Fashion Design
• Application of Interactive Genetic Algorithm to Fashion Design
• Fashion Design as a Means to Recognize and Build Communities-In-Place
• Standard vs. Upcycled Fashion Design and Production
• Integrating Sustainable Strategies in the Fashion Design Process
• The reDesign Canvas: Fashion Design as a Tool for Sustainability
• The Management of Sustainable Fashion Design Strategies
• Postmodernism and the Avant-Garde: Stylistic Change in Fashion Design
• Social and Cultural Features of Fashion Design in Milan
• Tools for Sustainable Fashion Design: An Analysis of Their Fitness for Purpose
• Towards a Future Pedagogy: The Evolution of Fashion Design Education
• Kimono History and Contemporary Fashion Design Influence
• The Fashion Design and Style of Young Adults and Teenagers in the US During the 1950s
• Sustainable Practices and Transformable Fashion Design
• Zero-Waste Fashion Design: The Intersection of Cloth, Fashion Design, and Pattern Cutting
• Gender Roles Paper Topics
• Louis Vuitton Essay Topics
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• Photography Essay Topics
• Contemporary Art Questions
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• Brand Titles
• Chicago (A-D)
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How to Start a College Essay: 5 Effective Techniques

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Impressionable Openers

Descriptions and demonstrations, show vulnerability, be authentic, stay personal, fun & quirky, common mistakes to avoid in your college essay.

• Ways to Overcome Writer's Block

Frequently Asked Questions About Starting a College Essay

College essays are a huge part of your college career. If not huge, one of the biggest, and for someone who has been there and done that, I know the amount of pressure the beginning of a college essay, as well as the entire essay, can put on your shoulders.

Not only are you trying to juggle things like word count and grammar errors, but you're also trying to create the perfect college essay introduction that will attract admissions officers to your application or professors to your writing skills. And that, itself, can feel impossible, fill you with dread and self-doubt, but just breathe. I am here to help all present and future students know how to start a college essay.

Today is all about starting a college essay. I have come up with five easy and effective techniques that will help you create essays so good you're going to leave your readers wanting more , starting with your opening sentence! So, this is for all college students and college applicants. Stress no more! This guide was created to help you write a successful college essay. Let's get into it.

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The beginning of your essay should, first and foremost, always have a strong opening sentence . This sentence sets the tone for not only your readers but for the entire essay. Having a wobbly, almost interesting opener can steer an admissions officer and/or professor away, so you want it to be strong. And it doesn't have to be complicated! Less is more in this situation. Here are a couple of ways you can accomplish this.

• Look within and be relatable
• Use your real life for inspiration
• Think about ways to evoke emotion

Here are some examples of impressionable openers:

• Example 1: When I was 11 years old, my mother told me she had cancer over breakfast.
• Example 2: Maybe yellow isn't my favorite color.
• Example 3: I sat next to this girl in class who made me feel stupid.

DISCLAIMER : your opener should ALWAYS adhere to the essay prompts. These are just a few examples that can capture your reader's attention almost immediately.

In order to keep readers interested, visuals are key . Image-based descriptions will not only add value to your writing, it will give your readers front seats to your essay's journey. These descriptions let actions speak for themselves.

Here is an example of a description and demonstration in an essay:

• Example 1: "I was sitting on a bar stool when the word 'cancer' hit me like the smell of her coffee brewing on the stove. The Rice Krispies were popping in my cereal bowl, and MTV Jams was playing in the background, yet all I could hear was the sound of doom all around me. The lips of my mother were moving, but I was frozen, crumbling on this stool like my mother's health. She was sick, and I didn't know how sick or what that even meant, and that terrified me."

Why This Works:

Here you can clearly feel the writers emotional state: shocked, still, scared. Not only is this moment at breakfast traumatic, you feel frozen in time with the writer. Using descriptions like this will evoke so much emotion and leave your reader wanting more.

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Something one of my teachers told me in high school was any good essay will have personal elements in it, no matter the topic. That always stuck with me and became the way I approached my college essays. Showing vulnerability in your writing will always guarantee interest. It also evokes emotion.

You can show vulnerability by:

• Being honest
• Explaining what's going on inside underneath the exterior
• Describe what's going on around you at the moment
• Letting go of the fear of being seen
• Connecting with the topic
• Being transparent about mistakes/flaws

Examples of showing vulnerability:

• Example 1 : My mother telling me she had cancer over breakfast was not on my bingo card this year.
• Example 2 : I never thought losing someone I love would change me.
• Example 3: I had to lose everything in order to gain everything.

I know being vulnerable can be tough for some , but showing this side of you to college admissions officers and/or professors will not only make you stand out, but it can also help free you of things that might be weighing on your mind. Not to sound corny, but it can be therapeutic and make you a better writer . Just make sure you are staying on track with the essay prompt, and you're set!

Whether it's believed or not, an admissions officer wants to see pieces of you in your personal statement, so starting your essay by showing authenticity is a major major key. Along with being vulnerable, there are a few ways you can achieve this.

• Reflect : Take the time to reflect on your experiences, values, and beliefs that have shaped who you are today. Let your values, passions, and interests shine through in your writing.
• Mind Your Voice : Write in your own voice and avoid trying to sound like someone you're not. Authenticity comes from being genuine and true to yourself.
• Tell Your Story : Share personal anecdotes and insights that show your unique perspective.
• Be True to You : Focus on what matters to YOU (as long as you're on topic!). Write about what is meaningful and important to you rather than what you think admissions officers want to hear.

Above all, be open . Showing introspection and self-awareness in your essay will show any admissions committee who you are beneath the surface, as well as your personal growth.

You can also begin your essay being as random and silly as you'd like . It goes hand-in-hand with other important factors like vulnerability and authenticity. But don't get too crazy . Beginning your essay with something strange will definitely draw readers in. Let me show you what I mean.

• Example 1 : I start my mornings off in silence and solitude to keep people away from me.
• Example 2 : Sometimes, I like to circle big words in complex articles to learn new words. Yeah, but to also keep one in my back pocket for later use.
• Example 3 : Being the youngest child means getting away with everything you want, and that's exactly how I like it.

Do you see how each sentence draws you in? Not only are they light-hearted, but they also make you want to know why you want to keep people away in the morning and what kind of weapon you're forming against others with new words. And every youngest sibling will attest to feeling that exact same way. All of these examples are sure to make your essay fun, show who you are, and leave readers wanting more.

Years of writing college essays have taken me through every high and low of the process possible. And when they're good, they're great! But for some reason, my mistakes stick out more than anything. So, I've compiled a list of common mistakes to avoid when writing your college essay .

• Avoid Being Cliche - While you want to be captivating, you want to avoid overly used syntax and phrases that could potentially lose your reader's curiosity. For example, "in today's day and age," "follow my heart," "don't judge a book by its cover," etc. are all cliches that can be avoided by thinking outside of the box.
• Using Vocabulary to be Impressive - I know you want to impress the admissions committees, but it's important to stick to what you know and not what you can allude to. That is, use verbiage that resonates with your personality. Using extravagant words can work against you, and they can also sound forced. College admissions officers want to see the real you, so show it to them.
• Steer Clear of Controversy - Though it's not said enough, your college essay should tell your personal story and not touch on things that can stir the pot. For instance, talking about politics and religious beliefs may not be the route you want to take UNLESS it's called for in the college essay topic. And if so, stay on track with the essay prompts.
• Procrastinating : Waiting until the last minute to start writing your essay will bite you in the butt. You will feel rushed and end up writing a poorly crafted piece. Give yourself enough time to complete an essay draft, edit the draft, and repeat this two-step cycle until your essay is complete.
• Lack of originality : This goes hand-in-hand with avoiding cliches. Your college essay should exude a lot of your personality, so show admissions officers and teachers who you are! Include your cultural background, test scores that you're proud of, any future aspirations, etc. This all depends on the essay prompts, of course, but in my experience, every essay topic has room to show who you are.
• Ignoring the prompt : This is a major key. STAY ON TRACK. Make sure to carefully read and understand the essay prompt, and write your essay accordingly. The last thing you want to do is write a college essay that has nothing to do with the prompt. Reading is essential here.
• Lack of focus : If you want to know how to start a college essay, that means knowing how to stay focused. Find a quiet space, turn off electronics, hide your phone, and really nestle into how you want to capture your reader's attention. This will help you use your five senses clearly, keep your writing strong and not write an overly wordy essay. Focus is the tool here.
• Poor organization : Make sure your essay has a strong structure with clear transitions between paragraphs. An outline will work best to accomplish this. If you go into starting your college essay without a plan, be prepared to hit all roadblocks.
• Neglecting to Revise and Edit : Like procrastinating, don't fail to revise and edit your work. Always, always, always proofread your essay for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors , as well as clarity and coherence.
• Not Seeking Feedback : Listen, I know that completing an essay is an accomplishment in itself, and you immediately want to submit it, but it's so beneficial to have others read your essay for feedback. You can only spot so many holes in your work when your eyes are constantly reviewing it, so a second, third, or even fourth set of eyes can help point out areas for improvement.

Above all, trust the writing process. Though I do want you to be aware of your jargon, don't get too wrapped up in thinking you're making a mistake. That's what editing is for! Once you complete your college essay, you should always revise and edit accordingly . What you thought sounded good might make you edit it to sound great. Just keep in mind that many colleges are looking for honesty and authenticity vs how well you can sound on paper . So, if you're aware of these factors, you'll be good to go.

Ways to Overcome Writer's Block

Take it from someone who has suffered from chronic writer's block, it's a pain to get through . Imagine being on a writing streak so good that when you stop, the entire essay writing process stops as a whole. It's definitely a challenge, but after 10 years of writing essays and really honing my craft, I learned a few things that have helped me get through even the thickest of writer's blocks, and I want to share them with you. Check them out:

• Take a break : This works every single time. Take a short break and step away from your computer to clear your mind and come back with a fresh perspective. For me, 15 minutes is all I ever need. If you need more time, that's okay. Just try not to make your break a rest.
• Freewriting : Sometimes, I'd start writing without worrying about my structure or grammar to get the ideas flowing, and surprisingly enough, I found my essay taking a pleasant turn.
• Change your environment : Move around. Don't underestimate the effects of a different location or workspace to stimulate creativity. Try coffee shops, bookstores, a park, or a new room in your house. New environment, new energy.
• Set small goals : This one is actually the most important. Some people get overwhelmed with the word "essay" for things like lack of proper writing skills, pressure to write a great essay, etc. But if you try breaking down your writing task into smaller, manageable chunks to make it less overwhelming, it can help. For example, set a goal of three paragraphs one day, take a day to edit those paragraphs, two more the next day, and so forth. Find a formula that works for you.
• Brainstorming : Write down all your ideas--everything. No matter how small you think the idea is, write it down. Even if these ideas seem unrelated, they will help you generate new thoughts and connections.
• Read or listen to music : It took me a while to realize this helps, but engaging in other forms of art can inspire new ideas and break through mental blocks. And new creativity can lead you to impress admissions officers.
• Talk it out : As a writer, it's hard to let people in on the creative process, but discussing my ideas with a friend, family member, or colleague helped me gain new perspectives and insights.
• Relax and Meditate : Hear me out: it works! Practice deep breathing and/or meditation to reduce stress and anxiety that may be contributing to writer's block.

I won't sugarcoat it: the college application process can be intimidating , but it doesn't have to throw you off your game. When it comes to college essays, I see them as opportunities to be fun and expressive. Trust me when I say if you have fun with it, you'll attract the reader's attention , paint vivid details, and write an essay that will leave the admissions officer wanting you at their school. So, take it one step at a time and watch your personal statement come to life.

How can I make my college essay stand out to admissions officers?

Simply put, be yourself. As long as you stay on track with the essay's topic, showing pieces of yourself will allow admissions officers to know more about who you are. Essays are meant to show readers who you are, how you feel, and what you think naturally, not robotically, so be authentic in your writing, and you'll be sure to stand out amongst the rest.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when writing a college essay?

Some common mistakes to avoid in your essay are using cliches and boring wording. You also want to avoid procrastinating, wasting time, not focusing, not editing, etc. When writing your essay, you want to make sure you give your writing the time and attention it deserves, so make sure you're aware of what is pulling you away from your writing. This will help you stay focused. If you have any other doubts, refer to the section about mistakes in this article and let it guide you to success.

How important is the college essay in the admissions process?

Your college essay is key in the admissions process . It's an admissions committee's first impression of you as a writer and potential student, so it should be taken very seriously. Trying to cut corners or rush through the writing process will be obvious, and it will stand out more than things like test scores, academic achievements, extracurricular activities, and any other positive influence you've had in your life. So, don't take the easy way out and really work on your essay.

Feeling confident in your college essay skills and want to explore some other essay content? Explore our blog on the comma splice to enhance your technical writing skills!

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Guest Essay

The Story of South Africa No Longer Makes Sense

By William Shoki

Mr. Shoki is a South African journalist and the editor of Africa Is a Country. He wrote from Cape Town.

The ceremony went virtually unnoticed. On an overcast April day in South Africa’s administrative capital, Pretoria, President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered a lackluster speech commemorating the end of white-minority rule in South Africa. When Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the country’s first Black president, the skies were sunny with hope. Thirty years later, Mr. Ramaphosa’s enervated display against a gloomy backdrop was symbolic of decline. The African National Congress, Mr. Ramaphosa’s party, has been politically dominant since the country’s first democratic vote in 1994. In the general elections on Wednesday, it may lose its parliamentary majority for the first time.

This is uncharted territory. On several occasions, the former South African president Jacob Zuma proclaimed that the A.N.C. would rule “ until Jesus comes back .” Now Mr. Zuma is hoping to unseat the party that enabled his notorious graft. Founded in December last year, uMkhonto weSizwe, or M.K. — named after the A.N.C.’s former military wing — features him as its face. Even though he has been disqualified from running for office by the country’s highest court, the party has mobilized thousands of his supporters behind its populist platform. If it can overcome its internal factional battles and legal troubles, it may pose one of the greatest risks to the A.N.C.’s vote share and force it into coalition.

The party’s emergence is one of the many morbid symptoms in South Africa today. The A.N.C. is shorn of its purpose, a shadow of its former self, and the country it has long stewarded is troubled by collapsing infrastructure, systemic corruption, waning central authority and violent crime. Thirty years on from apartheid’s end, South Africa is in the midst of another complex transformation. What comes next is unclear. But given the country’s fragmentation, it is unlikely to be good.

How did we get here? At his state of the nation address in February, Mr. Ramaphosa allegorized the country’s post-apartheid trajectory through the fictional figure of Tintswalo, a woman born in 1994 who would go on to benefit from the deracialized expansion of social services like education, housing, electricity and health care. As many have pointed out , this democratic dividend persisted for at least the first 15 years of South Africa’s post-apartheid history when economic growth was strong, international market conditions were favorable and state management was competent.

The turning point came in 2009 — the year Mr. Zuma took power and a year after the global financial crisis. What followed was a comprehensive backsliding in life chances, political expectations and economic prospects. The A.N.C.’s hegemony was punctured by a series of consensus-shattering episodes: the Marikana massacre in 2012, in which 34 miners were killed by the police; the formation of the Economic Freedom Fighters in 2013 by a former A.N.C. youth leader; the expulsion of the National Union of Metalworkers from the country’s largest trade union federation, which is formally allied with the A.N.C.; and widespread student protests in 2015 and 2016.

All these developments called into question the conceptual foundations of the post-apartheid settlement, not least rainbowism, the young state’s founding myth of a nonracial, cooperative democracy on a forward march of progress aimed at healing the legacies of apartheid and colonialism. This universalist vision, encapsulated in the assertion in the A.N.C.’s 1955 Freedom Charter that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it,” was gradually undermined by enduring inequalities and a state overrun by corruption. In its place, a void opened up.

No political force, for all the A.N.C.’s loss of support, has yet emerged to fill it. The Economic Freedom Fighters, led by the militant Julius Malema, was once one of the most exciting entrants in the electoral landscape. But its national profile has stalled, and where it has governed — such as in coalition with the A.N.C. in Johannesburg and Durban — it has a less than inspiring record. The party’s claim to be more authentic executors of the A.N.C.’s politics of national liberation, willing to properly confront what it labels white monopoly capital, makes it harder to stand apart. This may not be a problem, with some speculation that it seeks a place in the government as a junior coalition partner.

The other main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has taken another route. Whereas the Economic Freedom Fighters’ animating grievance is that post-apartheid democracy did little to reclaim political and economic control for Black South Africans, the Democratic Alliance has underscored white hang-ups about Black-majority government. The party has long abandoned the strategy of cultivating Black leadership in its ranks, and its campaign has mostly consisted of alarmist warnings about continued A.N.C. rule — what its allies call Zimbabwefication — while flirting with separatist sentiments in its redoubt of the Western Cape Province.

South African political life once proceeded on assumptions of common citizenship; politicians disagreed on questions of governance and distribution, but there was a shared, if sometimes reluctant, commitment to the democratic process and belief in each South African’s membership in the polity. Now the so-called national question dominates the political spectrum. The question of who we are has superseded more programmatic questions of what kind of society South Africans want to live in.

In this vacuum of political imagination , identity has become the dividing line of society. To the right of the major parties are more overtly chauvinist forces. Parties like ActionSA, headed by a former mayor of Johannesburg, combine law-and-order invectives with anti-migrant policies. This posture is shared by the Patriotic Alliance, a formation run by a former gangster that has consolidated its base — voters who are mostly colored, as multiethnic South Africans are called — through a revived colored nationalism. Rise Mzansi, led by a former business journalist who compares himself to President Emmanuel Macron of France, diverges from this script. But its limited appeal to urbane professionals will do little to assuage a growing sense that the country’s cleavages are insurmountable.

Amid global discontent with liberal democracy, South Africa is not alone in seeing revanchism reshape the political terrain. The public’s response, generally, has been resignation. In 1994, with a turnout of 86 percent, more than 12 million South Africans voted for Mr. Mandela’s government. After centuries of oppression, exploitation and struggle, people were filled with hope that democracy would deliver a better life. By the last national election, in 2019, turnout had dropped by 20 percent, and over two million A.N.C. voters had been lost. Fed up by the government’s failure to improve their lives, many have simply given up on politics.

This process of disengagement — manifest in declining participation in trade unions, civic associations and political parties — is hard to square with the images of the multiracial, multiethnic, cross-class movement against apartheid that led the world to believe South Africans were uniquely endowed with high levels of social consciousness and good will. As that national story loses coherence, the country is reinventing itself. Like Tintswalo, the new South Africa has come of age and is on the verge of becoming something different. Right now, we just don’t know what.

William Shoki is the editor at Africa Is a Country, an independent online publication.

Source images from Getty Images, Associated Press, Reuters, Satour, SABC News, News24 and the collection of the artist

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