Criticism is allowed to be sharp – though many of its victims may not like it – as long as it is profound. This applies also to design criticism. What the newly revived digital station ZDFkultur is currently offering under the title “Design and Punishment”, however, is amazingly superficial. These three to four minute features are presented by philosopher and design theoretician Florian Arnold, though the concept of design – as their very motto, “Is it art or should it go?”  shows – remains vague.

The deconstruction of a complex can open up new perspectives and approaches when the task in hand is to understand an issue, to define a problem, or to seek a solution.

Simulation is applied throughout the entire design process, not just to detect possible errors at an early stage, but also to open up new areas of application for (innovative) technologies. One example of this is Google’s Soli project: a specially manufactured interaction sensor uses (high-frequency) radar to track hand movements to control products.

Granted that Karl Peter Röhl also gets called Hans Peter Röhl, that some of the dating is wishful thinking and does not represent academic research and the Nazi Party membership of some of the people involved is sometimes mentioned, sometimes ignored; granted the minor unfortunate mistakes and sloppiness which have long been standard for many design exhibitions at the Frankfurt Museum of Applied Arts. Pleasing and honest, by contrast, is ...