“Advertising design, in persuading people to buy things they don't need, with money they don't have, in order to impress others who don't care, is probably the phoniest field in existence today.”

― Victor Papanek

useless/sensible is a publication project based on my own interpretation of the quote by Victor Papanek. I agree with Victor Papanek’s quote to the extent that he’s criticising people’s blind belief in consumerism. Consumerism, with its nature of promoting the interests of the consumers, is bringing pollution and resource depletion as they keep pushing people to make products that are not necessary. Under the influence of advertising design, the artificial needs are planted into consumer’s mind. They think they need more to make their lives better. More products without aims are produced in the process, they are essentially useless, and they come with destruction to our environment and corruption in human’s mind.

Therefore, this publication aims to arouse questions about what advertising design made us think is necessary and what are the possibilities for sustainable designs. It reveals the artificial needs created by advertising design with examples of unnecessary products that we use in our daily life. It  showcases examples of alternative designs to inspire thoughts on sustainability and on how we can save our planet. It also sparks meditation on the consequences associated with consumerism and methods of making a difference.

The publication is divided into two sections, useless designs and sensible designs, in order to make a contrast between the designs that are tawdry and essentially useless, and the designs that are socially and ecologically sensible.

This is a publication consists of 48 pages, all the introductory texts are written by myself the informative contents are sourced from the internet, and the images are my illustrations based on images found online.