Dilnot equates the act of creating or choosing a gift to the design process. The bulk of Dilnot's article addresses the cultural significance of gifts and giving. He distinguishes between the "gift-object" or that which is carefully curated and the "gift-article." The "gift article" is marketed as a gift (such as a printed greeting card). The analogy of the good gift to the design process is a refreshing perspective.
Any object is always a potential gift and has gift - like qualities. There qualities in objects can either be visible or invisible, either direct or indirect. Directly objects can help make us. Objects that we buy intimately recognise our deepest needs and desires and help us satisfy them. E.G. A chair knows that our legs get tired of standing, so it provides the solution to eliminate the pain and help us. Other objects, like a lightbulb although do not have any direct influence onto the individual, give the global gift of light. If it was not for the lightbulb, humans would spend third of their day in darkness. However, there is a downside for the effects a lightbulb gives us. If it was not for the lightbulb, and the electicity, people could have spent more quality time relating to other people, than to technology, TV, Computers etc, that electicity provides us with.
However, buying things for ourselves, does not have anything to do with gift giving. "The moment of the 'gift' cannot be bought." (p. 153) The gift recognizes and affirms positive relationship between the giver and the receiver. An object becomes a gift when a giver, intimately recognised the receiver's needs and desires and choses the product to satisfy his/her needs. In the modern society, that has been raised to be selfish and indifferent, (everyone for him / herself) the lack of human relatioships between people in companies and organisations have substituted the gift for a "gift - article". You just feel obligated to give something, to recognise the event, but not necessarily the person. (e.g - Pen - is a usual gift article).
I believe that the gift giving pleasure is sacred. Sometimes a simple smile, or a kind word can make someone's day, and be the best gift, they ever got. It is the recognittion of us as individuals and our unique qualities that makes us value gifts and relationships. It is the thought behind the gift that counts. We hear that all the time, however, not everyone follows it. And we have been brainwashed by consumerism to forget the real meaning on the word 'gift'. Gifts became so generalised, and cliche that they no longer serve their proper function. They made us believe that objects can solve all our problems. And this is not true.
Therefore, because design is so commercially oriented, it is a big challenge for us, as designers to change the nature of gifts and gift-giving culture. Clive Dilnot, in his article, specifically points out that in designing, one needs to have a concrete individual in mind. If the user can be a concrete imagined recepient of our design, and we could recognise his/her specific needs and desires, we have a better chance or reaching people, because if designing for masses, you tend to overlook the care, attention and recognition that radiates from an object at any time. Our design is a gift giving exercise and If we were to always design for individuals and not for masses we could create a different society for ourselves.
From that it is evident that if you recognise only one person's need and desires and to design the best gift for that individual you also need to undestand his/her culture and get insites of how one lives. The object is never for itself, it will not only be a momentary recognition, but will serve that person longer and remake the maker.
In other words, if we attach meaning and care and recognition to objects, we confirm the relatioship between the 2 parties, we extend their lives. We all know that we adapt to things, and we adapt to objects. Objects have their cultures of use and these cultures tell us what we need to do with them and how to use them, etc. We are passively changed by these objects, like it happened with computers, we no longer able to write by hand, and we think in cut and paste functions. The object that recognised our need for speed in typing etc, made us into hybrid-humans, no longer what we used to be and this is what Elain Scarry means when she says that "(T)he object is never just 'for itself' It is ... 'only a fulcrum or lever across which the force of creation moves back onto the human site and remakes its makers"
What was the best gift you ever gave? Why?