Video Reflection: Design for Life

Design For Life is a television series where twelve students compete for a six month work placement with leading Industrial Designer, Philippe Starck. The program is shown over six episodes where students are eliminated based on outcomes of projects until two are left to compete in the final show for the placement. The show explores Starck’s way of thinking and approach to design, as he teachers the designers through providing feedback on their solutions to various project briefs. Philippe Starck believes that good design speaks of life. Starck states that he chose to run the show in Paris as the French culture has tough views on design, “When we make something bad, people say, ‘Oh it’s bad’. When we make something good, people say, ‘Oh it’s bad’.” This means that Starck believes designers must always question if they need to design more products.


In the first episode, the designers are given their first project which requires them to purchase two products from a common retail store from 100 Euros within one hour. These two products must fit into one of the following three categories,

- Ecology: environmentally sound/ not environmentally sound

- Gender: Female/male

- Function: Useful/useless

The purpose of the first task is for Starck to determine how the contestants understand creativity. Starck wanted the designers to show the stories behind the products they had chosen and how they relate to one of the categories. Many of the designers were not successful in achieving what he was looking for, which resulted in two being eliminated.

In the second episode, the designers are given their second project. The project is based on Starck’s philosophy of good design being products that are sustainable and can reach many people. From this the designers are required to design products that help humanity reach its full potential. The competitors find this brief extremely broad and initially struggle with creativity as there is no scope to focus on. The result of this task is the end of the road for two more contestants as they struggle to produce ideas that have sufficient innovation.

Starck’s approach to the project in the third episode is different to the two previous projects. He assigns the task of creating a product that can be sold in the market. The brief is to design a product used every day, which is not electronic and must be ethical, ecological and demographic. This task, like many other product design tasks, requires the designers to really understand the needs of their market before they can design a product to suit that group. The contestants complete in-depth studies including much role play to understand their market and needs. They also work on their presentation skills and pitching their ideas effectively in this episode.

The fourth episode is where the designers are cut from the existing eight to just four which will have their concepts made into prototypes. Leading up to this event it is an extremely intense and emotional week. The designers must refine their projects from the previous episode until they believe they have reached a stage where it the product would work successfully. This stage is only reached with ongoing consultation with Stark and his team. The designers try to sell their ideas to the judges as best as they can but at the end of the episode only four competitors are left.

In the second last episode the students are faced with the task of exploring branding and how this will affect the products success in its target market. This tough task results in Starck having to chose only two students to continue to the final week. In the final week the two students continue to develop their projects until they have finished, full size working prototypes along with advertising campaigns for their products. From this Starck must decide who he believes deserves the six month work placement with his team.

I found this series highly informative as it gave me an insight into the designer Philippe Starck. Not only did I discover his design philosophy and processes, I also learnt from the competitors. Each of the designers had different methods for gathering inspiration and exploring ideas and from that I discovered new methods that I can incorporate. I enjoyed this series very much and even know I understand the reasoning for the winner, my favourite designer lost!