Essential vs Inessential

After listening and viewing the lecture that Dr. Bruce Becker has shown us, it gave me a brief but clear understanding about the issues in third world countries. Sanitary, insulation, shelter and many more issues caused people in the third world to die. It was because of humanitarian designs that at least some of these issues were solved. The most problematic issue that I thought in third world countries was; obtaining fresh water. Fresh water is essential to human survival because it allows them to drink and be clean. In third world countries, many people died because of water pollution and skin infections. It was sad for me to see that in some countries where people are dying because they lack in fresh water, whereas in other countries, people are living luxuriously because they are abundant with fresh water. In this world, I believe there are essential items and inessential items. However, I feel that there are more inessential items that are being produced more than essential items due to the country’s wealth and power.

The biggest problem that other countries have rather than third world countries is that we create and make a lot useless and “only appealing to the eye” products. What I mean by this, I see a lot of materials that are used inefficiently in toy and fashion industries for only temporary use. Since toys and fashion items constantly change the most than any other products, a lot of time and money is spent to create these items. In a few months or even days, these products will only be storage. Toys and fashion items must always follow its trend and once it is outdated people get rid of it. So much material and time is wasted for people who only think about themselves and not for others. It is sad to see that in some countries, people make temporary products for purely pleasure, while other countries lack essential products for survival. Sometime in the near future, I hope that one day people will realize the seriousness of humanitarian products and focus creating more “life saving” products rather than “useless” products.

The product that I found most essential in all countries is water filtering products. As I mentioned before, fresh water is essential to human survival because people will always need it. It will also save many lives in third world countries because it can give the people what they lack. For most countries, people will know how water filtering products are used, but for third world countries, the design is crucial. People will need to understand how to use it just by looking at it. The design must be simplistic and if there are instructions, it has to be simple enough so that people can understand how to use it by referring to diagrams and so on.
For a designer, designing a humanitarian product is both complicated and simple. Whatever the product might be, the design must show its purpose and function at the same time. Nowadays, constantly changing trends cause designers to make inessential products. As a designer, I can only wish that someday a new trend will be; saving lives.