Heidi Paavilainen: “Anarchists at the helm”
Creative people may seem like anarchists, but in reality, designers make decisions and exert influence every day. Ornamo’s board work, cultural budget cuts, and everyday design solutions show that exercising power is part of a creative professional’s daily life, writes Heidi Paavilainen, Head of the Design and Fashion Program at Aalto University.
Stereotypically, Ornamo’s members — who also make up the board —are students and professionals of creative work, and creative people, as is well known, are those unruly anarchists who always throw darts at the wrongtarget and drink their beer from the wrong side of the mug. Given that, it’s a small wonder how smoothly the exercise of power,that blackest Beelzebub of all anarchists, proceeds for Ornamo’s board. It goes smoothly because it has to. The board must do the board’s work: make decisions either for the continuity and development of operations or because of some externally imposed regulation.
Perhaps the smoothness is partly explained by the fact that design students and professionals are particularly seasoned wielders of power. The tireless end of the production line churns out tram stops, customer journeys, bike pumps, installations, roadside ads, window frames, voting booths, fixed furnishings, bulletins, degree structures, strategies, and user interfaces, which—often accompanied by a bit of muttering and creaking—become part of human life. Every completed project represents the use of power, because nowadays nothing comes to anything without design. As a species, we have driven ourselves into a situation where design largely guides how we do things and where we go, in what position we rest, and by what means we seek peace of mind and profit.
A bitter example of the exercise of power took place when the government decided to cut cultural expenditures. The Ornamo board could, of course, have sought a solution by a shout vote, but like true anarchists, we believe in making decisions based on data and research. In this case, we used the results of member surveys, on the basis of which Ornamo’s services were ranked by importance. So when cuts had to be made, we knew what we would give up.
Every design project, whether killed halfway or carried to completion, means an insane number of decisions. Perhaps, then, it’s not such a huge wonder that even a changing group of born anarchists can, through discussion, arrive at outcomes that, in our view, keep Ornamo alive and vigorous.
Heidi Paavilainen
Vice Chair of the Board, Head of Design & Fashion Programme, Lecturer in General Studies in Design, Doctor of Arts (Aalto University – School of Arts, Design and Architecture)
Get to know Heidi Paavilainen
Heidi brings to the Board a multidisciplinary approach to education and research. She is keen to continue Ornamo’s work on the sustainability revolution and to strengthen the voice of professionals at different stages of their careers at Ornamo. Heidi believes that the design industry is moving in the right direction: designing services, strategies and operations has become a natural part of design work.
Hello from the Board is a series featuring the members of Ornamo’s multidisciplinary board, published roughly once a month. Ornamo members vote for board members each autumn in the e-elections held before the annual meeting, and each term lasts two years. The chair of Ornamo’s board serves a three-year term. Board members represent the full spectrum of design, from industrial design and strategic management to interior architecture, service design, and the arts. Students’ voices, design education, and perspectives from design entrepreneurship are also represented on the board.