Designing for the Mundane [Public Shaming Post #2]

As a writer, my principal interest has been the mundane. I think that there is an immense amount of meaning that can be unpacked from our everyday routines, and that the purpose of most creative acts is to make meaning from the ordinary. I disagree, however, with the statement that everyone is an expert on everyday life. An expert is critical, and this is independent of mere experience. I think Lefebvre was right to separate the everyday along the lines of the quotidian and the modern. This is an important distinction because it narrows the focus and demonstrates that the everyday transcends technology and temporality, which is why we can connect with it on multiple levels and layers. The mundane, in a sense, precludes the modern because it can represent only the transience of the present. I find it surprising that most designers want to operate outside of the everyday. Like the photography of William Eggleston, as designers our focus should be on the mundane in service of the many. We should operate with the same “democratic camera” of Eggleston’s, and understand “that nothing [is] more or less important.”