"People's designer" believes bad times will stoke better design

British design guru Sir Terence Conran predicts the current economic downturn will purge the dross from the high end of the marketplace and offer a creative catalyst for good, affordable design, reports the Times of London. The demise of venerable Wedgwood didn’t surprise the design innovator and restaurateur, whose business continues to thrive. A few years ago he recalls he told the Wedgwood directors: “You’re making products that nobody uses . . .There’s nothing for people to break and replace.”  He also expresses hope the recession “will stop all that ersatz Tudor-beathan ridiculous stuff,” noting that while mass house builders continue to reproduce bad design “in front of that house is a rather intelligently designed car and inside there is good audiovisual equipment, good kitchen equipment. It’s only the house that holds it all that is still so out of date.”

The Times