Knowledge Farm News

Newsletter
February 3, 2006

Design

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Prelim
"When I buy food at the farmer's market, I know that it has not been shipped back and forth across the country. It has not been grown by multinational corporations, but by families. Most importantly, when I buy food at the farmer's market, I meet the grower. I have a connection, an interaction, and a place to express my gratitude."
"We, the consumers, are essential in supporting these farmers and markets. We can truly be part of the movement that supports sustainable and locally grown food. In a world where we often feel helpless and overwhelmed, remember that ultimately, we hold the power, for in a market economy it is the consumer who has the final say. As the Chef's Collaborative from Boston proclaims, "Vote with your fork for a sustainable future."
Jenny Kurzweil
from: Fields That Dream A Journey to the Roots of Our Foods
Web Link - Fields That Dream

About Design

The overwhelming majority of our days are spent interacting with products. large and small, designed to house, feed, transport, empower, sooth, enrich, enlighten and protect us. From microchips to airliners to pencils, forks and T-shirts, we are involved. The birthing of these "products" into our world happens by design; a universal human enterprise.

Discussions of design inevitably include pondering creativity, what it is and how it works. Further, at the level of our daily interactions, is a concern with "getting it right". Here are some quotes from a marvelous little book titled By Design.

	By Design - Why there are no locks on the bathroom doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and other object lessons by Ralph Caplan "This is a book about design - for people who couldn't care less: the design process has more to do with your life than you think. It is also a book for people who care too much - who think design is everything: the truth is, designers won't save the world; but the design process can make it worth saving. Isn't that enough?" "The point of this book is that design, which is now directed largely to superficial ends, is desperately needed in, and applicable to, our most significant human activities - of which it is rightly is one." "For design is a process for making things right, for shaping what people need. We all live with designed objects that we love, hate, use, break, and don't know how to fix (in many cases, are warned by the manufacturer not to even try fixing). We need better ones. But we need more than manufactured objects, more than crisp and clever graphics, more than friendly kitchens and friendlier computers. We need...well you know what we need. We can get it by design. "Because design depends on individual talent, it is regarded by some as a solitary act. If it were an act, it might be. Certainly the richest design ideas, like the richest ideas of any other kind, come from single brains, rather from cerebral executive committees or think tanks. And great designs, like great poems, paintings, inventions, come from one fertile mind at a time. *But the vision of the designer as the romantic loner of The Fountainhead* is rarely valid or useful. Almost every design is in some respects collaborative. This does not mean that design is committee work. It does mean that before all but the simplest projects are given form, a designer has to depend on and work with a variety of people: managers, researchers, engineers, marketers, social scientists, and others. And this collaboration, this "working with" is design..."**
	Web Link - About the book and the author Web Link - Recommended among books about design Web Link - Amazon.com link

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	Photo of the week

Redbud Wind - energy project archive - Updated 1/20/06
Click the wind turbine icon see progress notes
for the Redbud Wind I site at Enid, OK.

George Beggs 12/2005 - Feedback is welcome

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