12 for 10 cents

The generally dispensable status of art and design, assigned by our consumer-minded culture, has allowed even the most naive bastard to recognize and revel in the quality of their personal creative vision. Uneducated designers and photographers permeate society and, like their Sunday Painter counterparts, cannot muster a fraction of the effort necessary to create anything of merit. The inordinate number of design agencies opened in recent years is a testament to our desire to communicate visually as well as our ignorance in believing everyone can do so. In the race for status and recognition, money and reputation, process has taken a backseat to pretense.

A fledgling minority still recognizes the importance of the process inherent to design‚ it is process, not product, that creates. Unfortunately, however, patience has been forfeited for immediate gratification and craft and thought have been superseded by contemporary trends.

In short: asinine expropriation is in vogue.

We at doucheine seek to subvert tradition‚ to unapologetically dismantle the regurgitation that so viciously pervades our industry. We abhor style, high-design‚ and the other atrocities being sold today within the confines of the style-houses that plague our industry.

We definitely Do Shine, but only while we Douche our Ine.

I co-wrote this piece, a manifesto of sorts, years ago in Chicago while visiting a friend who, at the time, was finishing his degree in photography. We spent an evening eating pizza, smoking out in the bitter cold, and discussing the state of our respective disciplines. I’d been a practicing design professional for a few years at that point and had already developed a thickening patina of disillusionment and contempt for my profession. Perhaps it was the burnout from agency life. Maybe it was already there. I suspect the latter because I still feel the weight of that contempt, but it has shifted now to all that comes with working in tech.

In the race for status and recognition, money and reputation, process has taken a backseat to pretense.

What I felt was true 20 years ago in the design world holds true in the product design landscape of Silicon Valley and beyond. It’s penetrating and perverse. Admired and celebrated. And it’s an utter joke. “It” is the state of design in the digital product design landscape, and I’ve been a part of it for almost 15 years now. If I had to squish it into a review I’d describe it as self congratulatory mutual masturbation without any payoff.

craft and thought have been superceded by contemporary trends

As true now as it was then.