Editorial
We admit it, we were mistaken. We thought design was in crisis. We were meeting people every day who had problems doing the things that designers are supposed to do. But it is not design that is in crisis, it is particular sort of design — our own rather arrogant design-layout orientated sort of design. Our search for worn out, tumble down design studios, and battered and despairing designers sent crazy by their products had no success. It would be wrong to infer difficulties from the misery experienced by a minority. The sick feeling was part of the process of creation — a large amount of unfinished business in the stomach. Luckily the old boys have taken care of the problem with a ruling — you are pregnant and feeling awful but there is to be no abortion. It would be a crime if a single German design got flushed down the toilet.
Unfortunately in our culture crisis is thought of as something negative not positive. And so this doesn\'t turn into a bad conscience we\'ll take it over. The environmental crisis for instance. The economic crisis. The political crisis. And look, it is still all still there — the environment, economy and government are just as they were. That is the power of words. You just have to talk about it often enough. That is the way to keep your mind clear. Not thinking is after all one requirement for being creative.
Not being difficult, not fierce, not moralistic but rather with that cheery composure that comes over someone who has just bitten through the worm in their apple we present here some pages of mental exercises and sketches of the spectral design still stalking Europe and elsewhere.
Jörg Petruschat