Our flyover begins with Ina Saltz’ review of the triennial survey of contemporary design at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. You can read her incisive analysis of this major omnibus exhibition on page 36; what’s worth pointing out here is that this show’s curators structured it around the broadest possible definition of design, ranging from books to aeronautics. “‘What is design, anyway?’ might just as well be the title of this show,” she says.

A very good point, especially in view of the preeminence of “big-D” Design in the popular imagination. Whatever the word is made to mean, design is regarded today as a means to mend all ills, from traditional roles like fortifying the almighty brand to reversing global warming.

This strikes me as greatly reminiscent of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era, the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century when radical developments in technology inspired an almost devotional belief in Progress. Design may be the popular spirit of optimism in our age, no less potent (and no less naïve) than was the Gay ’90s belief in Progress.

Turning to our Design 100 coverage, the core of this issue, we find Nancy Bernard contemplating the trends she sees emerging from this year’s competition. While she has a great deal to say about the excellence of 2007’s winning crop (her commentary begins on page 50), I found two of her observations fascinating.

First, as she considers the zeitgeist that underlies today’s design trends, she notes, “The economy is steadily better, but the budget deficit is steadily worse. International politics are more contentious, but the international economy is pulling people and nations together.”

Second, Bernard points out that the winning projects evince two opposing stylistic directions. One is based on disciplined typography, “straight” photography, sensible concepts and the rejection of style mining; the other relies on happy colors, hippy visuals and a headlong embrace of fantasy.

The conflicted nature of these design trends mirrors deep divisions in our society, a fact which seems to logically proceed to another characteristic that emerges from this issue’s survey: Eclecticism. As Bernard notes—and one of our Design 100 judges, Stefan G. Bucher, pointed out online—design today, at least stylistically speaking, seems to be heading in every direction simultaneously. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the STEP Design 100 for 2007. “Swiss design is alive and well, as is just about any other style,” Bucher says of the winning entries (read his full commentary, including useful tips for getting your work selected for the show at http://344design.typepad.com/344_loves_ you/2006/11/a_jury_of_your_.html).

A final aspect emerging from the design landscape is a revival of interest in ornament, often created via traditional, non-digital techniques. On page 42, Alissa Walker explores the superb drawings of Marian Bantjes as revealed in a new portfolio promotion from Fox River Paper. And on page 44, Sean Adams interviews Martin Venezky, a designer whose iconoclastic work is equally dynamic in both manual and digital domains. Artists like these provide a powerful counter to the dreary hegemony of mass-market brands and bland corporate kicks prevalent in our risk-averse society. In the work of designers like Bantjes and Venezky, ornament and the revealed touch of a human hand restore the unexpected to the smug determinism that dominates early 21st-century thinking.

Big-D Design hoopla and endless ruminations on emerging tropes tend to obscure the work of great beauty that these designers and artists create. There is an abundance of it in this issue. We hope you enjoy it for its own sake as well.