Karl Marx is one of the most famous philosophers to ever exist, with his most famous feat being his criticism of capitalism in the form of the communist manifesto. Marxism was, and still is, a response to, among other things, capitalisms tendency to prioritise the production of goods over all else. Adam Smith is generally seen as the man who came up with the idea of de-generalisation of work to increase production. Stephen West of the Philosophize This! podcast puts this in a very digestible way that I will summarise:

“Instead of one person making a clock in 10 hours, Adam Smith suggests dividing tasks: one specializes in cogs, another in springs. By focusing on simpler, repetitive tasks, they refine their efficiency, producing thousands of cogs a day. Together, 10 workers could produce 1,000 clocks daily, compared to 10 if each made entire clocks alone.(1)”

Marx’s criticism to this is that this is a fantastic way to make loads of clocks, but is the pursuit of making as many clocks as possible, as quickly as possible, going to make the population happy as a whole? Marx states in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844: “All these consequences are implied in the statement that the worker is related to the product of his labor as to an alien object.”(2)

Marx believed that the de-generalisation of work (factories instead of artisans) detached the workers creativity, craftsmanship and took the “soul” from their work. He also mentioned that the workers in the factories may never see the end result of what they’re contributing towards, and garner no satisfaction, nor any sense of accomplishment, from their work.

With these basic principles in mind, we can start to consider how a designer who held these principles close to their heart may design an object, for instance a chair.

It’s clear that the chair would be at most, batch-production, but probably piece by piece, with the same craftsman, or team of craftsmen at each stage of the production process. As for materials, a malleable materiel such as wood would provide an appropriate canvas for the craftsmen to make their mark, and express their wishes with their own two hands. A tougher materiel, such as a metal, would be much more difficult to manufacture, requiring heavier machinery to build, which would distance the craftsman to the process. There is a statement to be made that if the craftsman wishes for the chair to be metal, then that too, is a form of self expression.

Marx’s disagreed with the existence of different classes in society, believing that throughout history, the oppressed always seem work for the select few, until the oppressed inevitably overthrow the oppressors in a usually violent way. This was one of the things that he set out to change when creating his manifesto. To embody this concept in the lens of design, the chair would likely be devoid of any flourishing motifs, nor any excessive decoration since these usually cater to a specific class. Instead, I believe the chair would be simple yet functional, possibly in a modular design to improve repairability, and to reject consumerism and planned obsolescence.

Designing with such abstract concepts can be a fun way to take a deeper look into how the ideals of the designers can shape the world around us and how we interact with it. It can also enlighten us to how our own behaviours are affected by the design of objects in our everyday lives, such as the shape of a pencil, the dimensions and weight of a book, or the shape of a ketchup bottle.

Solarpunk and Design

Due to the omnipresence of design throughout human history, design can act as a way to give context to cultures and societies. I believe this link between humans and design works both ways, however, and that by designing mindfully and with intention on a macro scale, designers of all areas can create an environment that encourages certain behaviours over others. This can be seen as a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the level of optimism one has. The pessimist might see hostile architecture as a bad omen for the future. An optimist may look to a more hopeful possibility: the culture and design movement called “Solarpunk”.

A Solarpunk manifesto (Re-des, n.d.) written from the works of Adam Flynn and Jay Springett describes Solarpunk thus: “Solarpunk is a movement in speculative fiction, art, fashion, and activism that seeks to answer and embody the question ‘what does a sustainable civilization look like, and how can we get there?’”.

Solarpunk is a realisation that a better, brighter future does not necessarily oppose advancements in technology, but rather opposes capitalism, consumerism, false or “solvable” scarcity, and short-sighted solutions to long term problems.

Sustainability

Solarpunk puts sustainability as a major component of the movement, focussing on renewable energy, green architecture, and the rejection of consumerism. Kevin Richard eloquently states in his article (Richard, n.d.) about Solarpunk: “[I do feel like] a good first step in this direction needs to challenge our over-prioritisation of human needs, especially short-term ones, as paramount in all circumstances. It is not to say these are not important, but, they cannot be the only metric of success.”

By integrating these principles with the belief that humans disproportionately prioritise economic growth – often short-sightedly – one can design while being mindful of more than just the product’s immediate use, but rather its impact on people’s lives, and by extension, society as a whole.

Aesthetics

Solarpunk prioritises nature. Three words that could sum up the entire movement, not only concisely stating the movement’s philosophy, but also its aesthetics. In art, Solarpunk is almost always humans interacting with nature, with technology supporting both in harmony – think wind turbines, while humans tend to fields. Due to the nature-driven, technology-supported aesthetics, Solarpunk is commonly attributed with greens, browns, blue (sky), and chrome.

Conclusion

Having researched deep into the Solarpunk sub-culture, I believe it to be a fantastic concept, yet I struggle to look around me now, as I write this, and consider things I would be okay going without. Is my computer essential to me? How about the jumper I wear, or the mug of tea I drink from? Taking the first step to wanting less is difficult, a situation akin to the prisoner problem. If everybody mutually decided to live this way, I would gladly welcome it. This, however, is not the case – and such drastic changes take time and are best done step by step. This is where I believe design comes into play. By designing with the core principles of the Solarpunk movement – or a different optimistic future – in mind, changing public perception becomes more realistic. Let’s hope we’re quick enough to avoid a cyberpunk dystopia.

Raphael Murray Browne, 2025

As a believer in the importance of repairability and longevity in design, I try to surround myself with few, but beautiful objects.

One such object is my mechanical pencil, the Rotring 600. This pencil is made almost entirely out of metal, with a painted steel main body, and brass inner workings and clip – all in black, in my case. The tip of the pencil thins in steps, until it is almost as thin as the 0.7mm lead it pushes out. The pencil is mostly hexagonal, becoming cylindrical with a fine criss-cross pattern for the grip.

The full metal body gives the mechanical a hefty, but balanced weight that is optimised for sketching, over writing.

The grip is comfortable while providing a secure and functional contact with the user’s hand, however it does have a habit of trapping dirt and dust. The constant contact with skin, while being a fine, abrasive metallic criss-cross, eventually causes visible dirt which requires cleaning. The pencil can hold up to around 5 pencil leads, which can be dropped in from the top. The top of the pencil is where my biggest gripe with this pencil occurs. The eraser located at the top of the pencil is only small, which is fine since it has clearly been designed with replaceability in mind. The issue I have is with the casing, which on countless occasions over the years has gotten lodged in the barrel, as there is nothing stopping it when you push on it. The casing is extremely difficult to grip, and now I just leave it where it is as a cap to stop lead from spilling out, without even acknowledging its erasing properties.

But for my largest gripe with the pencil, that’s pretty minor compared to the listless pros this product presents. Over the years I have been using this pencil, it has become special to me. It has been with me throughout my entire journey to improve my drawing skills. Many of the drawings that got me into university were drawn with this pencil. This pencil travelled with me over Western Europe, as I documented my travels through drawing whatever was around me at the time.

A huge benefit for products with longevity in mind is that the user can have a relationship with the product over a much longer time, and forge a much deeper connection with the object. I could not have had the same experience with a regular pencil, since it would have fulfilled its function and been thrown away, once it had no graphite left over.

People often link memories to objects, and all the memories I have with this pencil are good ones. I hope that by surrounding myself with objects that last through the good and the bad, they can act as a sort of journal for my own life.

The Rotring 600 mechanical pencil is an absolutely fantastic tool, and I hope to use it for the years, and even decades that are to come.

22/11/24

I watched the others perform their presentations, including ones about the renaissance as well as the rococo period. They were pretty good, especially the ones that focussed on a specific topic and delved deeper into it, rather than a broad, but shallow overview of the entire era. I believe this was most likely due to the different groups repeating each other, which is fair enough, but gets stale after the first presentation.

29/11/24

In groups designated by our chosen period in art history, we made a model that we felt represented the period as a whole. We chose to create a tea cup in the style of the rococo period, made out of cardboard and stuck patterned paper. The patterned paper was frilly to imitate the rococo style, while the teacup itself was an object commonly found in aristocratic homes at the time the rococo period took place.

06/12/24

In our groups that were decided last week, we put together and presented an overview of the post-Impressionism art movement. I didn’t really vibe with the movement, but it led to a host of other movements that I like. Another group presented about realism. I found it interesting that the discovery of germs had a noticeable impact on furniture design.

Another group – now composed of interior design students – are also presenting about realism. They spoke about how the realism movement was anti-establishment. My criticism is that – for at least the first 3 slides, there were many walls of text instead of any visual presentation. They explained about how the music of the time was often there to convey a narrative.

The final group are also interior designers, and they’re talking about post-Impressionism, just like we did. They talk about the brushstrokes and techniques which is quite interesting.

They seem to be talking more about the individual artists rather than the movement as a whole, which I think is a good way to present. Key specific knowledge rather than a broad overview.

13/12/24

This lecture had a much smaller audience, since it’s so close to Christmas. We started talking about what people are doing in relation to the assignment for the 3 essays. We were shown a video talking about the psychology of war – and how people fight wars over imaginary stories in their heads.

This related to design because Diego went on to talk to us about how top designers will tell a story through their works. We were then shown a video about critical thinking. We talked a lot about biases in our common sources of information.

After talking about arguments and after hearing about how people would go about convincing someone to see their point of view. I thought their arguments were naive, or rather they simply wouldn’t work if they tried against anyone they disagreed with in my family.

13/01/24

Diego spoke about how design is constantly pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. Diego wants to improve our critical thinking skills, in a lecture very similar to the one before Christmas. He states that the organisation of your research is important.

He spoke about primary vs secondary data, and that when writing, counter-arguments are essential for critical thinking.

While talking about referencing, Diego went on a tangent about structuring as essay when starting to write. This looped back round to using

28/01/24

This lecture was about design-activism, and started out talking about the transition from bart systems to ind. revolution, to rise of modern consumerism.

We delved deeper into consumerism, identity, and design – some discussion was thrown about, but ultimately no minds were changed.

We moved onto techno determinism, [insert definition of techno determinism here]. Also talking about how technology can have negative impacts to the world and the people using them.

07/02/25

This lecture started off with techno determinism, and with us looking at the lack of critical thinking when it comes to technology. New technology is often seen only as “progress” but this is an unfair bias.

After some talk about Apple being very good at thinking your old devices are out of date, we watched a video of a woman talking about equity and racial equality. The woman spoke about the design of the unjust systems we live in. I’m not sure I understand all of it, probably because I don’t have much experience with first hand racism. I feel like this talk spoke upon a lot of assumptions of the audience’s knowledge of social injustices. She spoke about the projects she organised designers to participate. One of them being a website for organising action – which action was not specified.

She spoke about the table of collaboration, which gave 4 sectors, and what people are good at, and talking about how each type of person brings unique skills to the table. I thought that this, while a positive message, did kind of contradict the message she gave earlier talking about how everyone is different.

We were given the task to create a design that would be considered design activism. Perhaps a conceptual thing, although at the time of writing, I feel slightly lost on what design activism could include. After clarification, I am to design something – object, ideology, or other – that makes people think about, or addresses, racial inequality.

Reflection on Essays

My 3 essays focus on Karl Marx, Solarpunk, and a beloved object I own. There is a clear common theme among my chosen topics, that of anti-consumerism.

The Karl Marx essay focuses on communist values and principles written in the original communist manifesto, and how these can be used as an influence in design. The Solarpunk essay talks about the Solarpunk movement – an optimistic prospective cultural shift focussing on sustainability through the rejection of consumerism and manufactured scarcity. The Pencil essay was about the Rotring 600, a full metal mechanical pencil that I happen to own. The essay focuses on the design of the pencil, as well as my relationship towards it and other objects.

By finding the common links between these points, I can find a way to create a manifesto of my own, encompassing the design ideologies I believe are most important and valuable.

Anti-consumerism

Anti-consumerism is an obvious part of my Karl Marx and Solarpunk essays; even being explicitly stated within the essays themselves. I don’t pretend to know much about intricate economic or moral viewpoints on the matter, however I have core beliefs and I must align my views to what I believe best fits those beliefs. I fundamentally believe that all people should be treated equally, with a society driven by passion rather than necessity (in the context of work). I believe that anti-consumerism aligns with this belief due to the fact that many of the cheap semi-disposable products that are flooding the market at time of writing are only able to be a competitive price due to the exploitation of low wage workers and poor working environments that are bred by the demand for the absolute cheapest items possible, with no regard for quality or longevity.

Longevity in Design

Objects that are well built typically have a long lifespan, as well as being a better experience for the user. By investing in high quality objects, while the initial cost may be higher, the user saves themselves from having to repurchase the same object later on, saving money over the long term. Throughout this long term, the user is (hopefully) finding joy in using the object that is better built, with more thought put into the design.