Archive for » November, 2012 «

Mitt Romney or Silicon Valley designer?

“Work with really nice people whose goal it is to make things and not to take things. Because there are people out there who just want to take things.”

This quote from www.designerfounders.com is attributed to Evan Sharp, the designer-founder of Pinterest. It reminded me of Mitt Romney’s 47% comment that almost half the country just wants entitlements, and Bill O’Reilly’s post-election analysis that Obama won because enough people out there just want “things.”

Not all designers talk like this, but that DesignerFounder.com thought this was worth highlighting on their homepage suggests that this kind of makers-takers discourse has wide hold, The question is how attributions of making and taking are being made, and I’m sure it is subtly different in different places but when “making” requires social, cultural, and financial capital, you tell me you don’t see some familiar gender / race / class lines being reinscribed.