In modern life there is a great variety of designer items that surround us everywhere: at home, at work, on vacation. These items are a kind of indicator of a person’s standard of living, wealth and social security. Every year the importance of design is only increasing. Moral and physical development of man is in direct dependence on the rational use of design products in everyday life.
Change is an integral part of our lives. Technical progress is directly related to social and personal progress. Time passes, there are new needs and problems that require individual approach from designers. Each person is unique, and individual responsiveness is determined by many factors, including age, gender, education, occupation, and other personal qualities.
For more effective collaboration between consumers and designers, we can use the idea of collaborative (participatory) design. This term was widely discussed in the late 60’s. The participatory method was used to organize design teams. It involved public participation in decision-making in the field of design practice and demanded a serious attitude to the evaluation of the views of different segments of the population.
Modern design is no stranger to such working methods. Above all, it is aimed at the individualization of the consumer, the expression of his personality, the introduction of participatory methods in practice. In fact, designers are a kind of conduit between man and art.
Today it is, on the one hand, a creative profession that requires certain skills, such as artistic skill, sense of style and color. On the other hand, design is not limited to its aesthetic function. It is an element of the production structure, oriented, first, on the achievement of high profits by the company, and second, on the needs of different national, social and age groups of the population.
Sometimes the design thing loses its function and comes on the market simply as a bright and attractive product. And sometimes the product is outwardly attractive and has deep functional content. In both cases, the consumer buys the product rather under the influence of fashion, and more than half of the properties are not used by the person. Thus, we find that designers often have to choose between commercial gain or creative satisfaction and self-fulfillment in art.
However, harmonious, beautiful design in any case plays an important role in human life and becomes a certain condition for securing an advantage among competitors in modern market relations.
It appears as an aesthetically objective representation of the spiritual and material life of man and as a whole instrument of management and control over society. Design takes part in forming a picture of the world, preserving traditions, developing new trends, creating comfort and coziness, giving stability to life and at the same time stimulating it.