Can design bring joy to the most frustrating, annoying moments of daily life? To find out American radio station Studio 360 and design agency IDEO teamed up in a challenge Redesign for Joy. On public request a team of designers will now try to bring some joy to Monday mornings.
Studio 360 is a radio station created and hosted by novelist Kurt Andersen. As part of a series called Studio 360 Redesigns the radio station joined forces with IDEO-designer and researcher Ingrid Fetell, who is the author of the blog ‘Aesthetics of Joy’. The public was asked what unpleasant experience or place it would wish to be more joyful?
Answers ranged from airport security lines, and winter weather, to taxes, and the daily commute. Apparently the latter annoyance is at its worst on Monday mornings.
“Nothing seems quite as painful as that Monday morning commute,” Fetell concluded. Or, as one person wrote: “Does anything say ‘joyless’ more than trip up to work on a Monday morning?”
We’ll keep you posted on the joys the designers will devise for the grimmest period of the week. Well, not for everyone. At WDCD we are overjoyed with every Monday morning that brings us closer to WDCD on 21 & 22 May in Amsterdam.