Design for Life

I think that Starck had the right idea with the environmental concerns he had. However, it’s interesting that when I think of Starck I do not think of anything remotely resembling environmental concern, I just think of his many eccentric designs. I was so happy to hear him say that the covers for apple products do not deserve to exist in the first place because apple is done well to begin with. This is completely true, who really needs a pack of 4 differently colored skins for their apple products? Or for any other product that has a market for device covers? I have a cover on my iPhone called an Otterbox. This device is meant to make the iPhone nearly indestructible, you can chuck it at a wall or as I accidentally did, drop it off of a second story balcony, and it will survive. This type of cover prolongs the life of the iPhone for people like myself who usually go through a few phones a year. This prevents me from buying another, which would include all of the manufacturing, shipping, packaging, etc. This Otterbox product deserves to exist whereas its nothing but colorful cousins do not. I loved that Starck qualified everything in this “deserves vs doesn’t deserve” to exist manner. A lot of his students did not realize how important sustainability was to Starck’s judgments. Starck also thought that products must be completely new ideas, there is no need in the world anymore for redesigning of old products. New designs of old products just create more waste. I will always remember and consider these two points when I design things in the future. Does it deserve to exist? Has it been done/ am I creating more waste?