It’s the story that won’t die: Michael Cannell’s January article for the Times, titled “Design Loves a Depression”, has become the Cuisinart to the apricot fondue of design discourse, and it’s stirring up debate once more with Allsion Arieff’s latest dispatch for the Times’ By Design blog.

Allison’s first maneuver is to rip off, however unknowing, our blanket coverage of l’affaire Cannell, recapping the whole business with only somewhat less flair and wit. To review: Cannell’s original piece put a lit match to “frivolous” design and called for architects to rally around the flag of social responsibility, as (he claimed) they inevitably must following an economic crisis as severe as the present Pigfu*!k. Design-monger Murray Moss struck back in Design Observer, to the effect that he would always lurve him some white gold lobster forks and all y’all haters should go back to Cuba. And then Pilar Viladas and Philippe Starck weighed in for (PV) and against (PS) Moss’ argument; feelings were hurt, lives were destroyed, and the whole thing ended in a hail of bullets.

So what could Allison Arieff possibly have to add to this discussion?

Um, some nice consumer products, and a vaguely Obama-esque conciliatory program:

We may have never been confronted with as many problems as we are today; the blame for them can’t be attributed to designers, but many future solutions can—and will be.

You get a car! And you get a car! Arieff closes with an image of a Matt Jones poster, vide supra. That’s pretty much what Arieff would appear to be about here—which is slightly surprising since she hasn’t been so given to feel-good solutions in previous posts. (We’re gonna make a poster of our own, one of the these days: “Get Depressed and Destroy Things.”)

Designing Through a Depression [Times]