According to The Times newspaper's Year of Ideas
Next year is the year that emotional design moves mainstream.
Now that it's 2008, let's explore that emotion further.
Lucia Van der Post cites writer Ilse Crawford as a harbinger of change. In her latest book on interior design Crawford
pointed out that, very often, the language surrounding the home reeked "simply of the balance sheet", when what people craved was much more the notion of home as "a safe place, a loving place and a creative place. A place where we can explore our inner life."
Van der Post goes on:
Looking back, it seems amazing that the cold logic of "form follows function" and the almost universal aversion to anything decorative reigned so supremely for so long.
And on:
Today, more and more designers acknowledge that their job is not just to produce efficient products but also to provide things that give much deeper, emotional pleasure.
Rather than pious simplicity, this is a vision that's decadent as well as spiritual.
'Emotional design' sounds like sitting in a room reading the complete works of guru Sri Aurobindo while occasionally glancing at walls decorated with paintings by Gustav Klimt.
Spin through other pages of The Times and Sunday Times magazines and the idea of gilt-edged naturalism writes itself large:
- A recipe by chef Gordon Ramsay for Pineapple Ravioli with iced Mango and Mint
- An inside view of Trudie Styler's new range of organic jams, created at her
Jacobean manor house set in 198 acres of farmland, grounds and walled gardens, with a picturesque hamlet of barns and outbuildings
- And a frill-free retreat to a yoga camp in the Turks and Caicos, retailing at £3185 per person, previewed by a supremely cheese-on-cheese byline
Just when did life get so busy? We all need time to think to de-stress, to recover, to lose weight, to get fit, to find inner peace - and spas have evolved to just do that.
If 2008 is to be a year of 'emotional design', we're going to need a road map to help us through this mash of aspiration and austerity.
And rather than renew that subscription to the anarchist journal Black Flag, I can see 2008 as the year of finding ways to celebrate but also turn this new emotionalism in to something other than an expression of surplus wealth.
