I call my approach honest design. I don’t want to have to hide any aspect of my design from the user.

​

Dieter Rams talked about honesty as part of his ‘Ten principles of good design’, encouraging designers not to make the consumer believe that a product is worth more than it actually is. The simplicity of Rams’ designs are highly influential to what I see as honest design, for they have nothing to hide, only containing essential components. I follow this approach in the hope that the person using my designs will be able to fit them into their personal lifestyle.

​

The work of Michel de Certeau has also informed my approach. He proposes that the way we live our lives is limited by the products made available to us. Objects are produced in mass which are designed to become obsolete. Obsolescence can come about through a change in fashion, making the existing product no longer socially acceptable, but also through physical changes, which deem the existing product useless. This is how mass producers generate profit, a dishonest approach by my definition. In becoming obsolete, such products do not permit the user the time to interpret it for themselves before they have to be replaced again.

​

It is my belief that the user should be able to develop relationships with products through tactile use over time. My juicer for Foster + Partners aims to promote this in kitchen products. Every few years kitchen electronics break or a superior version is released with the old version destined to gather dust. This is a classic example of dishonest design. My juicer is manual, pared back simply to a glass, a strainer and a handheld masher. The strainer is designed so that it can fit into the glass during juicing, which is sized to hold 150ml of juice, one 5 A Day portion. The rest is left to the user to uncover combinations of fruit to fill that portion, developing their own techniques with the masher.

​

The whole product is designed to be as tactile as possible, but also to be as simple as possible, as with Rams’ ideas about honest forms. I do this to expose the user to the whole product, giving them the opportunity to explore it in the context of their own lives. In contemporary society, with the growing use of technology, I deem this physical relationship between person and material more vital than ever. Therefore, it is important to me that I select appropriate materials to bring my concepts to life, to optimise user interaction. I want to design good quality objects, which may cost a little more, but which will endure a lifetime, rather than being thrown away and replaced every few years.

​

I want to treat everyone equally by allowing us all to celebrate our differences. In being honest about what my product actually is I am inviting the user to make a personal choice about how to use it. Our differences and potential variations in use do not matter if the objects offered to us are simple, rather than prescriptive.

​

By being honest about the content of my designs the user can gain unlimited access to them.