0:00:00.875,0:00:03.897
Design is a slippery[br]and elusive phenomenon,

0:00:03.921,0:00:07.182
which has meant different[br]things at different times.

0:00:07.206,0:00:11.474
But all truly inspiring design projects[br]have one thing in common:

0:00:11.498,0:00:13.324
they began with a dream.

0:00:13.679,0:00:15.117
And the bolder the dream,

0:00:15.141,0:00:18.782
the greater the design feat[br]that will be required to achieve it.

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And this is why the greatest[br]designers are almost always

0:00:22.724,0:00:26.412
the biggest dreamers[br]and rebels and renegades.

0:00:26.787,0:00:29.570
This has been the case throughout history,

0:00:29.594,0:00:33.515
all the way back to the year 300 BC,

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when a 13-year-old became the king

0:00:36.682,0:00:41.125
of a remote, very poor[br]and very small Asian country.

0:00:41.475,0:00:44.960
He dreamt of acquiring land,[br]riches and power

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through military conquest.

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And his design skills --

0:00:48.082,0:00:49.905
improbable though it sounds --

0:00:49.929,0:00:52.974
would be essential[br]in enabling him to do so.

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At the time,

0:00:54.779,0:00:58.189
all weapons were made by hand[br]to different specifications.

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So if an archer ran out[br]of arrows during a battle,

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they wouldn't necessarily be able[br]to fire another archer's arrows

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from their bow.

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This of course meant that they would[br]be less effective in combat

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and very vulnerable, too.

0:01:13.339,0:01:14.941
Ying solved this problem

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by insisting that all bows and arrows[br]were designed identically,

0:01:19.080,0:01:20.811
so they were interchangeable.

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And he did the same for daggers,[br]axes, spears, shields

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and every other form of weaponry.

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His formidably equipped army[br]won batter after battle,

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and within 15 years,

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his tiny kingdom had[br]succeeded in conquering

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all its larger, richer,[br]more powerful neighbors,

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to found the mighty Chinese Empire.

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Now, no one, of course,

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would have thought of describing[br]Ying Zheng as a designer at the time --

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why would they?

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And yet he used design[br]unknowingly and instinctively

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but with tremendous ingenuity

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to achieve his ends.

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And so did another equally[br]improbable, accidental designer,

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who was also not above using[br]violence to get what he wanted.

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This was Edward Teach, better known[br]as the British pirate, Blackbeard.

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This was the golden age of piracy,

0:02:14.301,0:02:17.974
where pirates like Teach[br]were terrorizing the high seas.

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Colonial trade was flourishing,

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and piracy was highly profitable.

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And the smarter pirates like him[br]realized that to maximize their spoils,

0:02:27.139,0:02:31.766
they needed to attack[br]their enemies so brutally

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that they would surrender on sight.

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So in other words,

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they could take the ships[br]without wasting ammunition,

0:02:37.352,0:02:39.393
or incurring casualties.

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So Edward Teach redesigned[br]himself as Blackbeard

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by playing the part of a merciless brute.

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He wore heavy jackets and big hats[br]to accentuate his height.

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He grew the bushy black beard[br]that obscured his face.

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He slung braces of pistols[br]on either shoulder.

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He even attached matches to the brim[br]of his hat and set them alight,

0:03:00.855,0:03:04.985
so they sizzled menacingly[br]whenever his ship was poised to attack.

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And like many pirates of that era,

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he flew a flag that bore[br]the macabre symbols

0:03:10.518,0:03:13.978
of a human skull[br]and a pair of crossed bones,

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because those motifs had signified death[br]in so many cultures for centuries,

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that their meaning[br]was instantly recognizable,

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even in the lawless, illiterate[br]world of the high seas:

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surrender or you'll suffer.

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So of course, all his sensible[br]victims surrendered on sight.

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Put like that,

0:03:34.000,0:03:38.675
it's easy to see why Edward Teach[br]and his fellow pirates

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could be seen as pioneers[br]of modern communications design,

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and why their deadly symbol --

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(Laughter)

0:03:46.232,0:03:47.383
there's more --

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why their deadly symbol[br]of the skull and crossbones

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was a precursor of today's logos,

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rather like the big red letters[br]standing behind me,

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but of course with a different message.

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(Laughter)

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Yet design was also used to nobler ends

0:04:02.366,0:04:06.580
by an equally brilliant and equally[br]improbable designer,

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the 19th-century British nurse,[br]Florence Nightingale.

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Her mission was to provide[br]decent healthcare for everyone.

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Nightingale was born into a rather[br]grand, very wealthy British family,

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who were horrified when she volunteered[br]to work in military hospitals

0:04:23.872,0:04:25.506
during the Crimean War.

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Once there, she swiftly realized

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that more patients were dying[br]of infections that they caught there,

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in the filthy, fetid wards,

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than they were of battle wounds.

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So she campaigned[br]for cleaner, lighter, airier clinics

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to be designed and built.

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Back in Britain,

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she mounted another campaign,

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this time for civilian hospitals,

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and insisted that the same design[br]principles were applied to them.

0:04:51.496,0:04:54.248
The Nightingale ward, as it is called,

0:04:54.272,0:04:57.952
dominated hospital design[br]for decades to come,

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and elements of it are still used today.

0:05:01.834,0:05:03.089
But by then,

0:05:03.113,0:05:06.141
design was seen as a tool[br]of the Industrial Age.

0:05:06.165,0:05:08.891
It was formalized and professionalized,

0:05:08.915,0:05:11.408
but it was restricted to specific roles

0:05:11.432,0:05:14.510
and generally applied in pursuit[br]of commercial goals

0:05:14.534,0:05:16.809
rather than being used intuitively,

0:05:16.833,0:05:21.059
as Florence Nightingale, Blackbeard[br]and Ying Zheng had done.

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By the 20th century,

0:05:22.906,0:05:25.919
this commercial ethos was so powerful,

0:05:25.943,0:05:28.467
that any designers who deviated from it

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risked being seen as cranks[br]or subversives.

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Now among them is one[br]of my great design heroes,

0:05:36.378,0:05:38.906
the brilliant László Moholy-Nagy.

0:05:38.930,0:05:41.697
He was the Hungarian artist and designer

0:05:41.721,0:05:45.977
whose experiments with the impact[br]of technology on daily life

0:05:46.001,0:05:47.167
were so powerful

0:05:47.191,0:05:50.491
that they still influence[br]the design of the digital images

0:05:50.515,0:05:53.237
we see on our phone and computer screens.

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He radicalized the Bauhaus Design[br]School in 1920s Germany,

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and yet some of his former[br]colleagues shunned him

0:06:01.150,0:06:05.768
when he struggled to open a new[br]Bauhaus in Chicago years later.

0:06:06.194,0:06:10.408
Moholy's ideas were as bold[br]and incisive as ever,

0:06:10.432,0:06:14.159
but his approach to design[br]was too experimental,

0:06:14.183,0:06:17.667
as was his insistence[br]on seeing it, as he put it,

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as an attitude, not a profession[br]to be in tune with the times.

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And sadly, the same applied

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to another design maverick:[br]Richard Buckminster Fuller.

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He was yet another[br]brilliant design visionary

0:06:32.881,0:06:34.298
and design activist,

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who was completely committed[br]to designing a sustainable society

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in such a forward-thinking way

0:06:40.814,0:06:44.154
that he started talking about[br]the importance of environmentalism

0:06:44.178,0:06:46.931
in design in the 1920s.

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Now he, despite his efforts,

0:06:50.109,0:06:54.842
was routinely mocked as a crank[br]by many in the design establishment,

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and admittedly,

0:06:56.058,0:06:57.851
some of his experiments failed,

0:06:57.875,0:07:00.869
like the flying car[br]that never got off the ground.

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And yet, the geodesic dome,

0:07:02.965,0:07:06.289
his design formula to build[br]an emergency shelter

0:07:06.313,0:07:08.994
from scraps of wood, metal, plastic,

0:07:09.018,0:07:12.264
bits of tree, old blankets,[br]plastic sheeting --

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just about anything[br]that's available at the time --

0:07:15.059,0:07:18.630
is one of the greatest feats[br]of humanitarian design,

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and has provided sorely needed refuge

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to many, many people[br]in desperate circumstances

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ever since.

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Now, it was the courage[br]and verve of radical designers

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like Bucky and Moholy

0:07:32.384,0:07:34.657
that drew me to design.

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I began my career as a news journalist[br]and foreign correspondent.

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I wrote about politics, economics[br]and corporate affairs,

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and I could have chosen[br]to specialize in any of those fields.

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But I picked design,

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because I believe it's one of the most[br]powerful tools at our disposal

0:07:51.533,0:07:53.952
to improve our quality of life.

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Thank you, fellow TED design buffs.

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(Applause)

0:08:00.045,0:08:04.453
And greatly as I admire the achievements[br]of professional designers,

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which have been extraordinary and immense,

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I also believe

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that design benefits hugely[br]from the originality,

0:08:12.098,0:08:13.416
the lateral thinking

0:08:13.440,0:08:17.155
and the resourcefulness[br]of its rebels and renegades.

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And we're living at a remarkable[br]moment in design,

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because this is a time when the two camps[br]are coming closer together.

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Because even very basic advances[br]in digital technology

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have enabled them to operate[br]increasingly independently,

0:08:35.104,0:08:37.518
in or out of a commercial context,

0:08:37.542,0:08:42.591
to pursue ever more ambitious[br]and eclectic objectives.

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So in theory,

0:08:44.285,0:08:49.572
basic platforms like crowdfunding,[br]cloud computing, social media

0:08:49.596,0:08:53.040
are giving greater freedom[br]to professional designers

0:08:53.064,0:08:56.549
and giving more resources[br]for the improvisational ones,

0:08:56.573,0:08:57.730
and hopefully,

0:08:57.754,0:09:00.259
a more receptive response to their ideas.

0:09:00.671,0:09:04.838
Now, some of my favorite[br]examples of this are in Africa,

0:09:04.862,0:09:06.989
where a new generation of designers

0:09:07.013,0:09:10.558
are developing incredible[br]Internet of Things technologies

0:09:10.582,0:09:15.186
to fulfill Florence Nightingale's dream[br]of improving healthcare

0:09:15.210,0:09:18.758
in countries where more people[br]now have access to cell phones

0:09:18.782,0:09:20.967
than to clean, running water.

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And among them is Arthur Zang.

0:09:23.642,0:09:26.512
He's a young, Cameroonian design engineer

0:09:26.536,0:09:30.681
who has a adapted a tablet[br]computer into the Cardiopad,

0:09:30.705,0:09:33.128
a mobile heart-monitoring device.

0:09:33.152,0:09:37.493
It can be used to monitor the hearts[br]of patients in remote, rural areas.

0:09:37.517,0:09:40.163
The data is then sent[br]on a cellular network

0:09:40.187,0:09:43.217
to well-equipped hospitals[br]hundreds of miles away

0:09:43.241,0:09:44.417
for analysis.

0:09:44.441,0:09:47.746
And if any problems are spotted[br]by the specialists there,

0:09:47.770,0:09:50.994
a suitable course of treatment[br]is recommended.

0:09:51.018,0:09:53.329
And this of course saves many patients

0:09:53.353,0:09:58.558
from making long, arduous, expensive[br]and often pointless journeys

0:09:58.582,0:09:59.900
to those hospitals,

0:09:59.924,0:10:02.203
and makes it much, much likelier

0:10:02.227,0:10:04.828
that their hearts[br]will actually be checked.

0:10:05.298,0:10:08.620
Arthur Zang started working[br]on the Cardiopad eight years ago,

0:10:08.644,0:10:11.367
in his final year at university.

0:10:11.391,0:10:14.806
But he failed to persuade[br]any conventional sources

0:10:14.830,0:10:18.257
to give him investment to get[br]the project off the ground.

0:10:18.281,0:10:20.154
He posted the idea on Facebook,

0:10:20.178,0:10:22.834
where a Cameroonian[br]government official saw it

0:10:22.858,0:10:25.811
and managed to secure[br]a government grant for him.

0:10:26.119,0:10:29.155
He's now developing[br]not only the Cardiopad,

0:10:29.179,0:10:33.807
but other mobile medical devices[br]to treat different conditions.

0:10:33.831,0:10:35.477
And he isn't alone,

0:10:35.501,0:10:40.424
because there are many other[br]inspiring and enterprising designers

0:10:40.448,0:10:44.340
who are also pursuing[br]extraordinary projects of their own.

0:10:44.364,0:10:47.910
And I'm going to finish[br]by looking at just a few of them.

0:10:47.934,0:10:50.189
One is Peek Vision.

0:10:50.213,0:10:53.288
This is a group of doctors[br]and designers in Kenya,

0:10:53.312,0:10:56.521
who've developed an Internet of Things[br]technology of their own,

0:10:56.545,0:10:59.146
as a portable eye examination kit.

0:10:59.639,0:11:01.561
Then there's Gabriel Maher,

0:11:01.585,0:11:03.659
who is developing a new design language

0:11:03.683,0:11:08.803
to enable us to articulate the subtleties[br]of our changing gender identities,

0:11:08.827,0:11:11.712
without recourse[br]to traditional stereotypes.

0:11:11.736,0:11:16.003
All of these designers and many more[br]are pursuing their dreams,

0:11:16.027,0:11:18.653
by the making the most[br]of their newfound freedom,

0:11:18.677,0:11:21.575
with the discipline[br]of professional designers

0:11:21.599,0:11:24.501
and the resourcefulness[br]of rebels and renegades.

0:11:24.525,0:11:26.587
And we all stand to benefit.

0:11:26.611,0:11:27.774
Thank you.

0:11:27.798,0:11:31.317
(Applause)