Interview with Lucienne Roberts, for her book about the nature of ethics in design.
Are designers conflicted about what’s important?
I remember at college a designer talking to us about his work. It was what I see as ridiculous curvy plastic stuff – executive desk sets, luxury goods with a capital L and a little bit of bling too. At the end of the talk he closed with an image of the world from outer space, saying that this is what really matters. It was gobsmackingly out of kilter with what he’d shown of his work, which was just expensive landfill. I thought it would have been better not to do some of that work than to show slides and talk about the bigger message.
What makes a design sustainable?
I hope that people don’t only keep expensive things. I’ve got this cutlery from Ikea that cost about £25 and is beautifully simple stainless steel – really lovely. I’m aware of it every day I use it. I’d like to think that as people live with and get used to this kind of thing they grow to appreciate and love it regardless of its cost.
The craft is important to you…?
The thing I like most is visiting a factory, seeing what happens and being able to interact with the process and work out how to use it most efficiently to get the job done. But sadly furniture manufacturing is less and less about factories and more and more about the brand. I’m less interested in what drives a lot of modern commerce so for me that fibreglass Eames chair you have over there is so great because it is so determined by understanding how it is made. This quality is part of what makes it sustainable too. The new ones are polyprop and recyclable. Fibreglass is nasty stuff to work with and you can’t recycle it, but I don’t think it matters so much when that’s already lasted 40 years and it will easily last another 40 or more. The new ones will need to be recycled because they they are so much less robust and will soon become grubby and a rough looking.
So, recycling isn’t the only consideration?
In the ‘90s I remember going to the Design Museum for the launch of the watch derived from the Swiss railway clock. Recycling was getting lots of attention so the man who headed the company said how the bodies were made out of recycled brass. I thought ‘shut up, mate!’. Brass has always been recycled because it’s got a scrap value, like all non-ferrous metals; that was the basis of the rag and bone trade. He belittled the value of the product by making too much of this stuff.
This is a complex argument. It’s energy inefficient to recycle sometimes for example. It’s very difficult to get a holistic sense of these things. There are life cycle analysis charts of materials and products but they very rarely look at how this fits into the greater scheme of things. It’s a bit like when the government pays a marketing company to prove how good nuclear power is over hydro or electric or solar power. You can make statistics support whatever you want.
Government should worry less about putting recycled logos on plastic bottles for example and more about using less plastic in the first place. Packaging is absurd. There’s such a stupid amount of plastic, cardboard, everything. Why don’t we just look at what they do in Germany or Scandinavia? Why don’t we just take a leaf out of their book? Speak to some Dutch people; they’re not far away so let’s share some information.
How much do you consider these issues?
A lot. We’re just talking about designing another exhibition for the Design Museum and we’re already thinking about reusing the glass from a previous exhibition. Exhibitions are often built to a very high spec so there should be some kind of central depository for ex-exhibition fabric whether it’s the Chelsea Flower Show or the Ideal Home or some smaller thing at the Crafts Council. After one Crafts Council show I was involved in they phoned round and asked whether anybody would be interested in the materials that they didn’t need anymore – it could have been used in house building or certainly reused somehow.
What role does the media have?
The design media often gives attention to the wrong things. Take for example the new piece by Zaha Hadid for Established & Sons. It’s a hugely excessive and expensive plastic table. It required a crane to get it in to the building when they showed it at the Milan furniture fair. It wouldn’t go up the stairs or in the lift or through the doors. It turned out it wouldn’t go through the hole in the roof so they had to disassemble the roof.
It’s the kind of thing you see in a Prada store with a couple of cashmere bikinis on it and it looks completely amazing. So that kind of makes it valid. But if you have to build the architecture around it, it’s not really furniture design. It ignores the real requirements of furniture – being affordable, easy to produce and deliverable without a crane and a supersize truck. On one level it’s interesting, it has an impact and it has a place in the world. A very small place, but that has to do with scales of production, so still a place. But it can be dangerous because it gets so much press.
This is particularly misleading for impressionable students.
Is its value in being groundbreaking?
Well, it’s a step in another direction in terms of how furniture design evolves. There were square tables then Charles Eames came along and took things in a slightly more organic direction. This is another step on that road – less plain, super curvaceous – the top’s not flat, even. Kind of annoying when you want to put a glass of wine down but…
Are artists respected more than designers?
I’ve recently done a couple of projects where I’ve had more the role of an artist. There were big empty gallery spaces that I had to fill and it’s been a nice experience. When you’re a designer you’re providing a service, not so different to being a plumber or whatever, but actually an artist is also providing a service. Commercial and public galleries are part of the entertainment industry now – you know the Barbican Gallery is competing with Leicester Square Odeon and Selfridges nowadays, isn’t it?
That said I did get more freedom and appreciation. The client was open-minded. I was commissioned because people were interested to see what I would do. So a free reign and support as well to try and achieve something that was discussed as an intellectual thing rather than a purely commercial thing.
Is design a misunderstood term?
Yes. The language is failing us a bit, isn’t it? Eskimos have 11 words for cloud or rain? – there should be 11 different words for design.
This is becoming more of a problem because marketing people have hijacked the term. Consumers aren’t trained in design thinking so they can’t analyse for themselves whether something is a good buy or will be worn out by next year. They’re almost trained to buy on the basis of superficial considerations –whatever colour or shape is deemed fashionable or marketed strongly. And as a designer I gather things, but also not as a consumer, I’m not buying into someone’s marketing thing. I still pull things out of skips or off the street because I’m interested in the form or how it’s made or why it looks like it does.
This comes down to politics…
Capitalism is a bit berserk now but it’s a difficult one because we’re all wrapped up in it. Unless you go and live in Wales in a tepee and grow your own vegetables it’s really difficult not to be a part of it. You have to live quite an extreme life to be removed from it and you could argue that that’s just avoiding doing something positive to change things. I think you can only make a difference from within. It’s important to take part in the discussion.
Obviously the question is where you draw the line. There are issues for you as a graphic designer about representing the views of those you don’t agree with for example. Do you preach to the converted and work for a good cause or work for more commercial enterprises and try to change things from within? Ultimately you need to feel comfortable with your own ethical position.
Why are you involved in education?

I believe very strongly in it as a source for good. I know that’s a big statement but I think that it gives people the means and confidence to think for themselves. To learn to apply logic and rational thought combined with empathy to understand the position of others. This dispels the idea that it is only religion that makes people behave well.
Design education helps you learn to analyse a situation or problem and initiate changes to make things better if not solve the problem. You can apply this thinking to politics or anything else – not just design. I’ve often thought that there should be designers employed in government and at board level of big corporations to exercise that analytical process in solving problems. The solution isn’t always another product. Often it’s about thinking broadly and instigating systems to deal with a situation, which doesn’t require more material being produced or processed.
It’s great when you see students recognise these ideas. That makes it all very worthwhile. In an ideal world this would start at school. Years ago the Design Council argued that design should be part of the national curriculum. I think it would equip people to deal with life much better if they had a broad understanding of what design might be.
Have you felt envious of other designers?
I did at one point for a couple of years. I was anxious that I should be more focused and more determined or ambitious or something and try and get more serious clients. I never really did anything about it because I’m not very good at that. It was kind of niggling me that I was fannying about doing this and that and not really focusing enough.
Then suddenly I realised I was really, really lucky to be in the position I’m in. I get to do lots of different things and I’ve worked with lots of different people and that’s always been a really nice experience – working with other people who do other things, and just doing lots of different types of projects. Last year, for example, I did a few writing projects. I’m not a writer at all but I’m a bit opinionated and so people think I might have something to say… and it was kind of interesting.
So are you actually quite happy?
Yeah, I am. I feel very lucky to get away with what I do and I enjoy it so much.
I think within my business I’m respected for what I do too but that’s not the thing that drives me, it’s the fact that I’m happy. I think it gets more difficult to be happy, doesn’t it? When I first left college my enthusiasm would override things that it wouldn’t now. I’m still happy because I’ve got a variety of challenging work so I’m learning. I’ve never aspired to having a holiday home or a flash car or anything. I think I’m lucky because little things make me happy.
You know the novelist Kurt Vonnegut? I heard him talking about how he writes on an old typewriter. He sends his manuscript to someone who types it up on a word processor. He buys one single envelope, walks to the post office, gets it weighed, buys the stamps and has a little chat with the person in the post office. He had a very nice way of talking about all that – the atmosphere of his life and how this is a contact with the world. It was a very nice kind of poetic thing and very warm and funny as well. I identify with that.
(2006)