At the Department of Graphic Design, where I have the pleasure of working, we often say that everything we see has been designed by someone. Contemporary reality is described by researchers using the acronym VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. This should come as no surprise if we look at a few facts about the state of the world we live in. Each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted. In Poland alone, this amounts to 3.5 million tons, 60% of which comes from households. At the same time, according to the United Nations, 9% of the global population experiences hunger.
Since we are already speaking about food, it is worth noting that, according to the European Commission, the world’s 1.8 billion cattle account for 18% of harmful greenhouse gas emissions in transactional terms. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American buys around 53 kilograms of clothing per year, while the average European buys 26 kilograms — of which about 11 kilograms are discarded. Speaking of waste, Eurostat reports that in 2014 alone, the total amount of waste generated in European Union countries reached 2,503 million tons. The main category of packaging waste consists of plastics, whose production increased from 1.5 million tons in 1950 to 322 million tons in 2015. Interestingly, according to the European Commission, six out of the ten most commonly found plastic items on European beaches are packaging waste (plastic bags, bottles, disposable cups, chip packaging, and so on).
Today, however, we can say that we have moved from the beaches of Europe into the more environmentally sensitive territories of digital reality. According to Borderstep, emissions resulting from the production, use, and disposal of digital technologies account for between 1.8% and 3.2% of greenhouse gas emissions. TikTok is an unquestioned leader here, generating 2.63 grams of CO₂ equivalent per minute per active user; it is estimated that TikTok has 1.8 billion active users per month. A study titled Carbon Emissions and Large Neural Network Training showed that training GPT-3 with 175 billion parameters consumed 1,287 megawatt-hours of electricity and resulted in the emission of 502 tons of carbon dioxide — comparable to the annual emissions of 112 gasoline-powered cars. Google, in turn, estimated GPT-3’s carbon footprint at approximately 8.4 tons of CO₂ per year. And since the holidays are approaching, we will all have a bit more time for Netflix, whose carbon footprint in 2020 amounted to 1.1 million tons — equivalent to a city of 150,000 homes.
On the other hand, according to a report by Statistics Poland, in 2022, 11.6% of households in Poland had no access to the Internet. The main barriers included a perceived lack of need, low digital competencies, and financial difficulties. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization described the global spread of false information as an “infodemic,” pointing out that misinformation about vaccines and treatments significantly hindered public health efforts.
And since we are talking about health, mental health cannot be ignored. In Poland, mental disorders affect a broad segment of society — every fourth adult has experienced them at some point in life, and nearly 8% within the last year. The most common are anxiety disorders (16%) and depression, which affects nearly four million people. Particularly alarming is the situation of children and adolescents, among whom 30% are suspected of depression and as many as 40% have considered a suicide attempt. This is further compounded by limited access to specialised psychiatric care in Poland.
Nor can we ignore armed conflicts. While our attention is focused on the situation of our eastern neighbours, it is worth noting that, according to the Global Conflict Tracker prepared by the Council on Foreign Relations, there are currently 27 armed conflicts worldwide. Among those with particularly worsening dynamics are the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the conflict in Afghanistan, political instability in Lebanon, the armed conflict in Yemen, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, the conflict in Ethiopia, as well as military tensions between India and Pakistan and the escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran. The United Nations warns that international stability is currently under the greatest threat since the end of World War II. Approximately two billion people now live in conflict-affected areas, including regions such as Tigray in Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan. According to UN data, 84 million people were forcibly displaced last year as a result of armed conflict, violence, and systematic human rights violations. It is also estimated that at least 274 million people will require humanitarian assistance this year.
There is, of course, much more data that compels us to look with concern at the reality around us. And although I am aware that this is only one side of the coin — because, on the other hand, we live longer and more prosperously (at least in this part of the world) — I would like to echo Viktor Papanek: we are responsible for what we give to the world and what we leave behind.
Although contemporary design practice is changing in ways that are difficult to control from a methodological and instrumental perspective, design as a discipline does not fundamentally change its distinctive relationship between form and function. Horatio Greenough’s concept that form ever follows function, proposed in 1739, became — perhaps unintentionally in causal terms — a cornerstone of interwar modernism and remains a point of reference for design today. The achievements of Alex Osborn and Horst Rittel in the field of creative methods (brainstorming) and design methodology laid the foundation for cognitive reflection and its outcomes in the form of contemporary design discourse, whose representatives argue that, given the civilisational challenges ahead, design is a fundamental modus operandi of social change.
Design studies as an academic discipline does not seek discoveries in describing design, but rather in applying it to specific problems — in Frayling’s terms: research into design, through design, and for design (Frayling, 1993). Debates about the superiority of design thinking over strategic design or service design — or vice versa — are losing significance. Equally uninteresting are discussions about successive incarnations of the concept of user-centred design proposed in the 1950s (human-centred design, community-centred design, humanity-centred design — Norman, 2023). These resemble new editions of the same book, bringing little to either theory or practice.
A fundamental understanding of design as a process of problem-solving — diagnosing problems and delivering solutions adequate to end users in specific social roles and environmental contexts (Wszołek, 2021) — allows practitioners to focus on action, and scholars on the study of design. In design, the starting point of any activity is the problem. In this sense, design is close to science — if we follow Popper in assuming that knowledge does not begin with observation, data, or facts, but with problems. There is no knowledge without problems, and no problems without knowledge. Science seeks truth and discovery; design seeks solutions to previously discovered problems.
The literature proposes several types of problems:
- Tame problems — problems with identifiable sources and clear solution scenarios, requiring finite resources (e.g., building an engine).
- Aporetic problems — issues difficult or impossible to resolve unequivocally due to conflicts between fundamental principles or values (e.g., environmental protection versus economic growth).
- Wicked problems — introduced by Horst Rittel in the 1960s; social and cultural problems without clear origins or single solution paths. These constitute the main categories of challenges we will face on the road toward sustainability.
Wicked problems manifest in several key thematic areas: social exclusion in its many forms; expansive modernity characterised by resource extraction, consumerism, overproduction, and hypertrophy; the imitation of design, where branding becomes more important than the thing it represents; and finally, the virtualisation of social structures, the externalisation of knowledge into data repositories, the confusion of knowledge with information and facts with opinions — a new totalitarianism in which everyone acts the same way and no one notices.
Today, the main response to these challenges is the concept of sustainable development, originally an economic doctrine based on the idea that the needs of the present generation should not compromise those of future generations. Adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as part of the 2030 Agenda, it includes 17 goals and 169 targets: ending hunger, ensuring good health, achieving gender equality, clean water, responsible consumption, peace, and justice. We are now halfway to 2030. Implementation remains a challenge, not least due to the inflation of the idea through greenwashing, semantic erosion, and the concentration of power and capital.
Design, too, faces an inflation of meaning. Innovation has become synonymous with progress; attention has become the key resource, because whoever holds attention holds power. Yet designers often focus on technologies and artefacts rather than on the most important element — the human being. Ultimately, it is humans who are responsible for the state of the planet, and only humans can choose the scenario of change: through design or through catastrophe.
Two dominant approaches to survival now coexist: socially responsive design (Universal Design, Human-Centred Design, Design for All) and environmentally responsive design (Life-Centred Design, Humanity-Centred Design). Yet these approaches often conflict. A possible “third way” lies in transformation design and what Scandinavians call lean development — what I prefer to call wise growth, where reducing certain comforts of everyday life may be the only path to survival. Such transformation requires open systems — communication based on participation and cooperation. To make change possible, we need awareness, education, and dissemination.
We face more questions than answers. We need solutions capable of accumulating and managing social attention and civic energy. The role of designers is shifting — from providers of solutions to facilitators and moderators of social change. Contemporary designers no longer design artefacts; they design processes — participatory, systemic, and, hopefully, sustainable ones. The key question is no longer whether we want a sustainable product, but whether we want a sustainability-aware society.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the term “graduation” literally means “release.” Today, you will symbolically be released from the obligation to continue studying. But you will never be released from responsibility for the world around you. As members of the academic community, you remain bound by university values — truth, goodness, beauty, as well as courage, openness, and responsibility. Change does not happen by itself. We are all equally responsible for it. Your future biography is more than translating learning outcomes into professional work.
Graphic designers — your work is not only about visuality, but about orienting audiences within a three-dimensional space of codes, signs, and brands. Journalists — your work will not only be in the media, but also on the media; you will face the difficult task of explaining the world. Psychologists — you know how much work lies ahead in supporting individuals on the path toward a sustainable society. Lawyers — the law will always follow innovation, but by framing it, it provides the institutional structure we need and ensures access to justice for all.
If we accept that design is a way of securing the future against the challenges of the present shaped by the past, then yes — we can all be designers.
Mariusz Wszołek 
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