Designers must know the limits of technology to improve their design work

I’m sure Mark Rock echoed the feelings of all Design Week readers when he lambasted the use of technology for technology’s sake (Design Business, DW 16 February). But his statement that “good design should be a constant” doesn’t really help in providing a solution. Design and technology aren’t separate disciplines: they are a single, evolving process.

We have a duty to master new digital techniques and media just as we must be alive to the possibilities of new materials and manufacturing processes. Good design – onor off-line – must, of course, put people’s needs ahead of technology.

But we also have to push all the buttons and pull all the levers on this stuff to see what it really can do, not just accept what the manufacturers tell us it’s for. If the price of that is the odd kid waving around a 250-layer Photoshop file, so be it.

No doubt the monks who illuminated medieval manuscripts hooted with derision when they first saw Gutenberg printed books.

Brian Millar

Joint creative director

Myrtle

Brian@myrtle.co.uk