THE POWER OF SEVEN

The Spirid Creation Matrix has seven scales of abstraction and analysis. These seven scales are also named the Power of Seven. The 7 Holistic Design Principles and the evolutionary goals are derived from these scales. Let’s guide through them.

7. Soul: This is the immaterial level where creation begins, filled with dreams, thoughts, and ideas. It is the realm of unlimited possibilities, ethical considerations, and the moral compass guiding our decisions.

6. Society: This scale considers the extensive network of interactions within society, encompassing everything from global communication systems to the smaller social impacts of individual interactions.

5. Surroundings: Here, we examine the immediate environment of the product, focusing on interactions with other objects and people, emphasizing the product’s role in daily life.

4. Surface: At this level, we delve into the sensory perceptions of the product—how it feels, looks, and sounds, which are crucial for user experience and emotional connection.

3. Structure: This scale looks at the internal components and functional mechanisms of the product, ensuring it performs effectively and reliably.

2. Synthesis: This involves the production processes and the creation of the product’s structure, emphasizing quality and sustainability from raw materials to finished goods.

1. Substance: The final scale focuses on the material end result, encompassing functionality, appearance, and the economic aspects of the product’s lifecycle, including ownership and trade.

SOUL

This is the immaterial scale where all creation processes start; The spirit, which manifests itself in the form of dreams, thoughts, associations, ideas, wishes, intentions, considerations, and making decisions. Everything is still possible at this limitless level. Only when an idea is implemented in the material, it will become clear whether it is feasible; in terms of time, money, resources, knowledge and skills. With every invention and discovery that humanity makes – activities of the mind – its knowledge and skills grow.

But apart from the feasibility of ideas, it is also about the desirability of implementing them and that leads us to ethics. Ethics provides guidance in resolving dilemmas involving conflicting interests, such as economy versus ecology, shareholders versus consumers, the necessity versus the madness of the global arms race. Ethics is about 'values'; the 'moral compass' for the mind. Every person interprets this differently, which makes people so different from each other. This is why one product can have such different meanings and spark appreciation for different people.

This new scale is one large network that connects everything on earth. And even beyond that, because satellites, the sun, the moon and meteorites are also parts of this network of interactions. Without satellites there would be no GPS or fast intercontinental communication. Without the moon there would be no ebb and flow. Without the sun there would be no life at all. And without meteorites, evolution on earth would have been completely different. Everything that has ever taken place and ever existed has left traces in the material world.

This incredibly extensive and complex network of interactions forms the society in which we now live. Society determines frameworks that are used to create new designs, but after that design is launched it will also change that same society to a certain extent. This is how the world evolves. Within this, every object – regardless of whether it is a dust particle, a coffee cup, a person, or an apartment building – has its own role, where the physical dimensions are less relevant than the effects. A COVID19 virus particle is invisibly small, but its social impact is evidently unprecedented.

SOCIETY

SURROUNDINGS

As soon as I distance myself a little from the product, my surroundings are immediately in view. The surroundings are filled with many other objects – and often people – with which the product can directly interact with. For example, a baby can make noise and thus attract attention. When it uses a rattle for this attention, this product becomes an interactive instrument at the service of the baby. Our daily lives are filled with endless interactions at this scale.

Interactions can be seen as exchanges of energy and/or information between different people, products, and/or objects. Interactions between people are at the core of our social connection and products can play a major role in this. Even in my sleep I still interact with my bed, and when I drink an espresso the cup interacts with the liquid in the cavity, with my hand holding the cup, with my mouth when I take a sip and with the marble top on the bar when I put it back down.

When I am close to a product, I can feel, see, smell and sometimes even taste its surface. And since a product is often also a sound box, I can sometimes hear it too. Just as the previously mentioned baby becomes aware of the objects in their crib in the first few weeks. From day one, our introduction to the material world is entirely through our senses. We feel the skin of products with our own skin.

Good development of the sense of touch appears to be essential for our emotional development as a child. Stimulating our senses is still important in our adulthood for a physically and emotionally healthy life. Not just the sense of touch, but all the senses. Many studies show that there is a strong relation between the aesthetics of our environment and our personal well-being. This scale revolves around the sensory perception of the product and the feelings it evokes in the observer.

SURFACE

STRUCTURE

My previous scale involved the description of the product surface and the role of our senses; our first introduction to the material world. Then I zoomed out three times. This time I move in the other direction and end up in the shell of the internal structure. These are the components that make up the product and that together ensure its 'functional operation'. All incoming energy is processed here and is potentially transformed into outgoing energy. This is the core of the functionality that the structure aims to provide.

For example, a radio converts electromagnetic signals and electrical current into sound. While a hammer converts the rapid movement of a person's forearm into a mechanical impulse to drive a nail into a piece of wood. Similarly, a mechanical watch converts spring tension into the movement of its hands. A computer chip has no separate parts, but an unprecedentedly complex structure at the nanometer level, based on layered patterns of conducting, semiconducting and insulating materials. These chips enable us to process complex data streams and thus support and strengthen our thought processes. The dimensions and materialisation of these parts determine functional qualities such as speed, power, accuracy, vulnerability, lifespan, reliability and any side effects of that functionality. This is the domain of technology.

One scale deeper I get into the steps to create this previously mentioned structure. The processes that raw materials must undergo, plus the actions to combine them. A bouncy ball is a simple product consisting of a single part, made of a resilient material. A mechanical clock is a relatively complex construction of a housing with dozens of tiny gears and other small moving parts that must be made and assembled with a high degree of accuracy. The achieved quality of the structure is closely related to the care of the processes used to create that structure.

I personally encounter this with more than a thousand copies of the Secrid Cardprotector. Chinese factories may copy the structure, but not the necessary processes. No copy comes close to the quality of our original. In this scale you are of course mainly thinking about the production of new products, but after a product has left the factory, the material changes will not stop. Every interaction leaves its mark, meaning that every product will eventually reach the end of its lifespan. Even the heavy marble blocks of ancient Roman temples have deteriorated from two thousand years of exposure to sun, wind and rain. So for every product there comes a time when you can ask yourself “Can this be repaired? Disassembled? Recycled?” This scale is the domain of material processing. Production in the broadest sense, from 'cradle to cradle'.

SYNTHESIS

SUBSTANCE

After the production process I enter the final scale; the substance, the material end result. As soon as the desired amount of substance is in the desired structure, the desired functionality, the desired appearance, the desired interaction options, the desired positioning and the desired meaning are created. When a design is put into production, it is usually with the aim of being able to sell it. The products are packaged and sent to an intermediary (store) or the end customer.

Sometimes products are made by a charity organisation and given out for free, such as Sheltersuits for the homeless or tents for refugees. However, there is still an underlying flow of money to fund it all. As long as the product is in its packaging it is 'passive' and is a commodity. Only when it is unpacked does its functional life start, like a bird hatching from an egg. The relationship between people and products in this scale is about ownership, responsibility, money and trade.

Sources of Inspiration

  • RICHARD LAYARD

    Many years ago, I came across Richard Layard’s 7 Happiness principles. As a leading economist, Lanyard extensively researched people’s sense of happiness. His findings resulted in a book adequately titled ‘Happiness’ (2005). Next to financial factors, he concludes that 6 other factors play an immense role in feeling happy. As I was working on my Matrix, I saw the similarities between my findings and Layard’s.

  • The Chakras

    The importance of the number 7 is rooted in our belief and the analogy of the seven chakras. The concept of the 7 chakras originates from ancient Indian traditions and is associated with the body's energy centres. The chakras are believed to be interconnected, forming a system that influences our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. When the chakras are balanced and energy flows freely through them, it is said to promote overall health and harmony.

  • The power of ten

    The Dutch teacher and Quaker missionary Kees Boeke (1884-1966) published his book 'Cosmic view, the world in 40 Jumps' in 1957. In it he outlines what you see when you look at a person from different distances. What do you see when you zoom out deep into the universe? And what do you encounter when you zoom in forty times by a factor of ten? The animation that the famous designer couple Charles & Ray Eames made of this in 1977 became a classic. This film intrigues me, because I also see design as a zooming-in process. Starting with endless possibilities and ending with one concrete design. A thought in my mind that gradually crystallizes into a material object that I can touch.