Prologue
I’m proud to call myself a designer. With design, I found a way of seeing the world that I can totally relate to. Design in all its branches fascinates me. Design is extremely intertwined with my identity. Design is one of my biggest self-wort pillars. Because it matters so much to me, I often find myself reflecting on what it means to be a designer—where I stand, what I bring, and what I unknowingly carry with me: my personal convictions, beliefs, values, biases, and prejudices. The following five-piece essay is a reflection on my career and the roles I held. Have fun <3
Part 1: Falling asleep
Instead of learning my French vocabulary for school, I watch the series ABSTRACT on Netflix. That sounds like fun. I want to do the same.
Entwerfen: I want to design.
Weltentwerfen: I want to design the world. (Design theorist Friedrich von Borries coined the term: »Weltentwerfen« with his book of the same name)
Weltverändern: I want to change the world.
Weltverbessern: I want to make the world a better place.
With that intent, I move to Munich to study design. While sitting on Vitra chairs in light-flooded ateliers, I was told stories that we as designers can change the world. Actually, that I can make the world a better place: ME, MYSELF, and I.
The heroes of these stories were Erik Spiekermann, Hartmut Esslinger, Dieter Rams, and Stefan Sagmeister. These genii imprinted their personal stamp on our everyday lives. (Manzini, 2015, p. 66)
»Striving to define ideals and norms, the modernist lineage of design has proved largely ignorant of its all-pervasive anthropocentrism and exclusionary assumptions, projecting a vision of the world largely defined by a small number of mostly white, male, cisgender designers in the Global North.« (Mareis, 2021, p. 11)
I’ve learned that design is the shadowy string-puller of the world. These masterminds called designers shape how we work, play, live, and think... always with the approach to making the world a better place through innovative ideas that solve problems. My fascination grew. Designing gave me the feeling of resisting the constraints of the world. Designing gives me power and control.
Entwerfen. Unterwerfen. Unterworfen.
I have subjected myself to the story (Or fairytale?) that design makes the world a better place through innovation. Design thinking was my religion. I was convinced that I could take on every problem in the world. I just need to follow the double diamond process, being empathetic, and within 10 sprints I’ll have developed a human-centered solution that will change the world for the better.
»[Design has] the tendency of seeing global crisis first and foremost as a worldwide design competition – without criticality, and without questioning underlying modernist biases and anthropocentric ignorance.« (Mareis, 2021, p. 18)
With this belief and understanding of design, I worked over the years for the companies of my heroes Erik Spiekermann and Hartmut Esslinger and finally applied for a service design Master's program. In hindsight, I was falling asleep, not questioning my convictions, and silenced my doubts.
»In short, design today struggles to confront this modernist and postwar heritage, which rests on colonialist and imperialist foundations. As a practice deeply linked to the rise of capitalism, industrial mass-culture, and the exploitation of both natural resources and human labor.« (Mareis, 2021, p. 15)
Part 2: All fairytales are lies
You have given my doubts, which I have silenced so thoroughly, a voice again. We called on a warm summer's day after I spent my day in the office of a famous design consultancy where I helped big corporates make more money. Ouch.
You said that you write your texts for yourself. That you express and explore yourself with your reflections and your creativity. You made me realize that I’m doing so many things for others. That I had lost my curiosity, creativity, and artistic practice to wrap myself in certainty and recognition. That it became more important for me to be able to explain to my parents what I do than to actually like what I do.
Service design is a form of process optimization. Fuck.
I’m about to study process optimization. Suddenly, I’m scared. I’m scared to move to Switzerland and study something I’m in a weird way disgusted by. Something I’m ashamed of.
Part 3: Shame
It's this strange feeling. I always admired the label »Designer«. I was so proud to belong to this exclusive club of black-dressed creatives. But now? My label has been given a prefix »SERVICE« designer. I'm feeling ashamed of it. The question »What are you studying?« triggers now unease instead of euphoria. I instantly want to justify myself that I can’t identify with this label. Service Design represents a design philosophy that I currently judge critically. Service design: In the classroom, we talk about users instead of people, stakeholders instead of partners, and efficiency instead of resonance. And then all these post-is. How I hate them. 76 x 76 mm. The symbol for the capitalization of creativity. Tear off without any residue.
On a personal level, the new prefix »Service« reminds me that for a while I blindly ran behind capitalist ideals: to please, to get recognition, to have certainty.
Part 4: Bad luck brings good luck
My feeling of sitting in the wrong room stabilizes a constant inner state of doubt and instability. But sometimes bad luck brings good luck: My Master’s is surprisingly open. I can do anything—anything but service design. So instead of grinding and polishing diamonds, I’ve thrown myself into the muddy water of complexity and ambiguity. And I enjoy being in this field of tension where nothing is certain.
Since starting my Master’s, I’ve been questioning everything. Here’s a short run-through:
- Is my fundamental drive to “make the world a better place” actually legitimate—or is it just well-packaged paternalism?
- Who gives me the right to take on the power of designing the world?
- Do I elevate myself to a position where I dictate to others how they should live?
- If change is my goal, do I work within the system, or do I operate on the edge to create alternatives to the norm?
- Do I lean toward resistance or innovation?
- Should I work with speculative, critical, and artistic methods—or with social and transformational design?
- Do I provoke conflict—or seek compromise?
- Do I design from intuition, like an author—or facilitate, like a moderator?
These questions all orbit around one thing: Impact.
And that leads to the next big question: Where do I want to leave my trace? Should I move to a big city like Berlin with a high density of designers and activists or should I shift to a small agglomeration where designers are seen as aliens? But the impact of my work is not the only thing that matters. I’m also a person not only a designer. I need to live. And feel good. And
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (That overwhelming feeling was my motivation to start Fragmeister)
Part 5: … and good luck brings bad luck
Dance with ambiguity! I would love to but at times it feels like I’m frozen and can’t move my feet.
I’m overwhelmed by sky-high expectations: In design classes, we talk about addressing wicked problems but still, most programs are designed for working alone on your thesis. The philosopher Dieter Thomä analyses this conflict between self-efficacy and constraints as a general societal problem. On the one hand, we are »hyper-active« individuals who get taught that we can act self-determined and make the world around us. At the same time, systemic constraints disempower our actions. This leads to a feeling of powerlessness due to the seemingly unchangeable systems and thus we enter a state of “ultra-passivity”. (Thomä, n.d.)
Next to that feeling of powerlessness, I catch myself procrastinating by reading more theories and mapping more systems and relations. Social psychologist Harald Welzer argues that systems thinking has a high attraction level because one doesn’t have to get their hands dirty. One is above the real word on a meta-level. Furthermore, he argues that with system thinking one elevates oneself into a position of fake wisdom. System thinking always comes with abstraction and simplification and neglects the complexity, contradictions, and one’s small role in the big picture. (Welzer, 2023, p. 230)
I am ambivalent. I think we need to constantly walk the line between staying in complexity and being naive dreamers.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/felix-schultz-0465501a0/
https://www.fschultz.eu
https://www.instagram.com/felixschuh/
References
Manzini, E. (Ed.). (2015). Design, when everybody designs: An introduction to design for social innovation. The MIT Press.
Mareis, C. (2021). Design Struggles: Intersecting Histories, Pedagogies, and Perspectives. VALIZ.
Thomä, D. (n.d.). Philosophie—Leben zwischen Selbstwirksamkeit und Sachzwängen (No. 08.08.2024) [Broadcast].
Welzer, H. (2023). Nachruf auf mich selbst: Die Kultur des Aufhörens. FISCHER Taschenbuch.