Wrapping up the Designs of the Year Awards, interior designer Naomi Cleaver declared that ‘design is our salvation’. It was the climactic statement of a growing crescendo of platitudes throughout the event about the role of design in tackling racism, social exclusion, global poverty and ultimately – as the overall winner the Barack Obama poster by Shepard Fairey seemed to demonstrate – winning presidential elections.

No wonder the assembled audience of designers, journalists and sponsors (lots of men in black suits from Brit Insurance) left feeling smug, having collectively patted themselves on the back for changing the world.

But how much of the discussion and the judging was actually about design? The Obama poster was applauded because it captured a mood: an entrepreneurial idea that expressed a new spirit of democracy. Emblazoned with the unspecific words (not slogans) ‘hope’ and ‘change’ you could also argue that the popularity of the poster was due to its unprovocative nature (if the poster had said ‘US out of Iraq!’ would it have been so popular?).And what of the quality of the poster as a piece of graphic design? The citation by Patrick Burgoyne, editor of Creative Review, said nothing about this or about where Shepard Fairey’s design sits within the powerful genre of political posters, or even the genre of screen-print pop art. I was left wondering if the poster would have won the award if Obama had lost the election; and whether a right-wing organization could create an award-winning poster.

In some ways these thoughts took me back to my days studying architecture when we would often discuss whether Guiseppe Terragni’s Casa del Fascio in Como (1936) could be considered a great piece of architecture because it was built as fascist propaganda.

The decision to give the award to the Obama poster tells us more about the political persuasions of the jury, rather than the quality of the design.

There had already been plenty of discussion about the ‘recontexualisation’ or ‘borrowing’ that goes on in Shepard Fairey’s work. This has been established practice since Andy Warhol so I do not go along with those who accuse him of plagiarism. The design does however ride on a wave of nostalgia, and we have to ask what it adds to the work of people like El Lissitzky, Ed McKnight Kauffer or indeed Warhol. The idea (to turn an image of a black man into patriotic colours) is a one-liner that is not particularly well-crafted: it looks like the image was passed through a software programme rather than hand drawn.

In other categories such as fashion, product and transport, design was – again – not the issue and some of the claims about the social impact of the work were patently ridiculous. For example, the idea that the wooden Magno Radio by Singgih S Kartono has transformed the labour practices of Indonesia and is a solution to rural poverty. This was a product, again, judged not for its intrinsic design qualities but for the fact that it is produced by hand in a labour intensive process that creates work for villagers in a remote part of Java. The crude detailing of the radio (including a crap piece of elastic and toggle that holds the back on) is even celebrated as ‘soulful and sustainable’.

Magno Wooden Radio © the artist

If we really are judging a design on its ability to create labour and wealth, then the Myto chair by Konstantin Grcic is a much better example. I’ve already made it clear I think it is a better design.

This product is made possible by the German chemical and Italian furniture industries (BASF and Plank) coming together to pool knowledge, expertise and technology. Both industries employ thousands of people and produce a constant stream of new products. But the manufacturer of the chair aims to reduce the time spent making each item in order to reduce the unit cost and be able reinvest in pushing forward production techniques. To me this is a far more democratic, optimistic and humane approach.

MYTO chair for Plank © the artist

Instead of aspiring for better, cheaper products, the advocates of the Magno are leaving poor people in Indonesia with a cottage industry that provides a handful of jobs producing a low-tech, badly made radio that will go out of fashion next year.

There’s nothing wrong with the Design Museum trying to be political or for Naomi Cleaver to want to change the world, but it’s a real problem that they are not judging design on its own terms and within its own tradition.  At best, it is the desperate attempt to make design ‘relevant’, at worst it’s a complete abdication of leadership.