Trailing edge design is related to slow design. For now they have a nebulous relationship. It hasn’t been determined whether one is a subset of the other, or vice-versa, or if they are just synonyms for the same design philosophy. That will become clear in time. So far, slow design is any of the following, either individually or in any combination:
- Designs created to solve localized, situational, or individual problems.
- Designs conceived of as ways of using materials that become available in limited quantities.
- Designs where the designer is as directly involved in the manufacturing as in the design.
- Designs where the designer makes gradual and ongoing changes to an actively used object, (not a cloistered prototype) to evolve the object toward a more refined level of design.
- Designs that are not innovative but that solve real problems by suitably implementing established solutions.
Mass-produced items are designed to satisfy general use case scenarios. While they may offer some options, like variable seat positions in a car, they are confined to the range of options the company decided would satisfy a reasonable scope of use case scenarios. Mass-produced items cannot work in all imaginable scenarios. More importantly, many human problems are too specific to be solved by some general-purpose widget. When we create tools, devices, furniture, or other objects to solve our own problems, or the problems of people around us, we practice a form of slow design. The requirements of these designs are defined by the needs of the user and the situation in which they live. Materials and construction are generally limited by what components, tools, and techniques are readily available to the designer
Utilization of resources that have fallen out of the consumer-industrial cycle is another form of slow design. Occasionally we come into a quantity of material, whether from a bumper crop, inheritance, or windfall, or from a lucky find in, say, an auction or dumpster dive. It may be manufactured commodities like lumber, raw materials like scrap metal, even manufactured goods that could be repurposed, like window panes or compact discs. When presented with an abundance of material like this we face a quandary. If it was too good to just throw away (or was too good to pass up) but we had no existing plans when we acquired it there are three options: try to sell or give it to someone else who can realize the material’s potential, store it in hopes of some future inspiration, or set out to design and fabricate works that will use the material to its best advantage. Sometimes selling or giving it to someone who can readily use it is the best answer. Storing just delays the inevitable. Here we’ll explore the process of coming up with designs to use up an abundance of material, selling or giving away products, rather than ingredients, and to keep one’s workspace from becoming a hoarder’s den. This is distinct from prototyping or making one-off products where the design comes first and the fabrication materials are sourced to suit the design.