In the first few weeks of April I had the opportunity to go to the Milan Design Week and run around the city manically trying to find and look at everything there was to see. Whether it was fate or pure luck I don’t know but I managed to wonder into La Triennale di Milano where there was a large grey banner hanging over the entrance prevailing the start of the Super Normal exhibition conceived and curated by Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa. The reason I subsequently got so excited and proceeded to drag the rest of my group into a small white room on the 1st floor of the building was partly due to this great article by Kevin McCullagh on the issue of a trend of disaffection towards design. It’s a fascinating read that I will leave to you to interpret as you will, but one thing stood out amongst the article; the Super Normal.
the Super Normal
The concept of Super Normal was hatched after an experience of Nauto Fukasawa during an exhibition of his work and the subsequent conversations with Jasper Morrison who had witnessed it first hand:
In April 2005, a series of aluminum stools I designed for Magis was shown at the Salone del Mobile in Milan. When I went to see the display at the trade fair, in contrast to other exhibits drawing attention under the spotlights, I found my three stools placed in a corner of the booth serving as rest seats for tired exhibition-goers. People probably didn’t even think they were design pieces. I must admit I was a bit shocked by this, and a little depressed.
The design had become irrelevant and unnoticed by the visitors of the exhibition. It had become hidden and yet important to the very people who had come to see “good” or special design. The result is Super Normal, which “definitely goes beyond seeing, and into a more interesting area of using and experiencing.” The best examples of Super Normal given by the designers is seen in anonymous objects; objects who’s designer is unknown.
Super Normal is more common in the world of totally anonymously designed things, I think we have realized this quite clearly while making our selections for the exhibition, but it is also possible in the world of designer signatures, and I think we would agree that it’s not only preferable but that it seems to offer a whole new world to design, as you say, free of the mantle of “Design”.
What they are concluding is that far from trying to invoke a visual lust for an object, it is more important to create by “attempting to anticipate the objects likely impact on the atmosphere and how it will be to live with.” Morrison uses the example of a set of favourite wine glasses which when used “the atmosphere returns, and each sip of wine’s a pleasure even when the wine is not.” I searched around the room for anything of this description and my eyes quickly fell onto a large beer mug that I commandeered from a small traditional lodge in the Swiss Alps. The large mug brings joy every time I use it, which is for almost everything I drink even if it doesn’t fill to the top. The weight, the slight hobble as my finger runs over the delicate line on the handle, the heavy sound it makes when I put it down; all makes it, to me, Super Normal. Yet one can argue that the object has a sentimental value attached to it, memories, and whether this qualifies as an attribute of Super Normal-ness and whether there needs to be an agreement from a second party for it to be Super Normal and not entirely based on your opinion. Is there a reason after all that this was a joint conclusion between Fukasawa and Morrison?
Meanwhile design, which used to be almost unknown as a profession, has become a major source of pollution. Encouraged by glossy lifestyle magazines, and marketing departments, it’s become a competition to make things as noticeable as possible by means of colour, shape and surprise. It’s historic and idealistic purpose, to serve industry and the happy consuming masses at the same time, of conceiving things easier to make and better to live with, seems to have been side-tracked. Super normal is the artificial replacement for normal, which with time and understanding may become grafted to everyday life.
designing for the Super Normal?
How do we design the Super Normal? Can it be designed or is it something that can’t be pursued and obtained just by the designer alone? The designer should have no egocentric imprint on the objects, there should be no attempt at trying to place design on the object or even express himself/herself. This goes completely against what we are used to in our everyday lives. It goes completely against branding, against attraction or form to strip it down to the basic element of what it is. Jasper Morrison describes it beautifully as; “like spraying paint on a ghost”. Every iteration or improvement in our society is simple waiting for it’s next coat of paint. The real quest for designers is in the exploration of what can get deemed as “boring” or “ordinary”. By leaving out the design you are designing objects that truly are dependable. An example that I have been interested in for a while is Muji, the ‘no brand brand’ fresh out of Japan. With four stores (as of writing this) already in London and many more planned, it’s popularity is growing. Don’t let its lure of affordability and lifestyle improvement put you off, its core displays a deep understanding of what it means to cater for the Super Normal even if its brand has distorted it.
Yet, design as always provided for what people want, or rather, what they think they want. “Design makes things seem special, and who wants normal if they can have special?” We need to be designing for the people rather than market research or future predictions on what is special. New isn’t bad and I’m not saying that everyone should necessarily redesign the old, it just requires a reconfirming of what is already important in an object. Of course I’m not implying we demand that manufacturers and big corporate entities put up or shut up, after all they are often who decide what’s what, unless your say, Jasper Morrison or Nauto Fukasawa. We need to remember that we are here to care for and improve our environment. With the creation of objects that we care for and grow an attachment too, design can move forward, out of this semi-lull its got itself into.
In our world it is the things that don’t get noticed that make it so the things that want to be noticed, are noticed.
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[...] can often physically ‘de-brand’ something. Anonymous design, as promoted by the Super Normal Exhibition, is a very powerful factor in creating something that is embraced and used, rather than idolized or [...]