The Nature of Design - Essay Example

WHAT IS DESIGN? “Design is the search for a magical balance between business and art; art and craft; intuition and reason; concept and detail; playfulness and formality; client and designer; designer and printer; and printer and public.” — Valerie Pettis Design as defined by dictionary.com is the preliminary sketch or the plans for (a work to be executed). It can be broadly classified as the basic of the plan that lays the basis and the groundwork for creating or making of each and every object or for that matter a system. It is omni present and something that affects us in day to day matters, be it the clothes that we wear to the skyscrapers that we in today’s world live in. Sometimes even the events around us are designed such as celebration of a festival or a party. It requires great insight into the process of designing for a designer to be able to design a particular commodity or a particular event. It calls for the designer to investigate into various things leading to the final product such as the functionality of the design, the aesthetic value and the final modeling of the product. The word ‘design’ originates from the Latin word “desingnare” which meant to “mark out, devise”. It could be further broken down into the words de- "out" + signare "to mark," from signum "a mark, sign". The process of design is very important to any study that is carried out to understand design. For, without understanding design as a process it is not possible for one to understand the intricacies of design. It could be best defined that design process is the manipulation of the constraints faced by us. In order achieve the suitable design for anything it is important to understand the constraints surrounding the particular design. There would be obviously a good combination of constraints which are negotiable and those which are non- negotiable. The process of design would be maximum utilization of the negotiable constraints that we face while to eliminate or nullify to the extent possible the constraints that are non negotiable. It may so happen that the constraints that we face would be forcing us with no option but to abandon a particular design or with no option to design. Faced with such a situation it would be prudent on the part of the designer to revise or rethink that particular non- negotiable constraint. Failing to handle or manage the negotiable and non- negotiable constraints would lead a design that would be neither practical or of any aesthetic value. The philosophies for guiding design are numerous and countless. The basic concept of design itself is something that cannot be guided by a particular school of thought or for that matter by any particular individual designer. Design philosophies basically are guidelines for the designer to reach his particular goal in terms of the design that he/ she is preparing. The designer may have his own individual philosophy that may affect the design and its accompanying aspects rather than any laid down rule or philosophy. This is particularly prominent in the modern design era. A designer may again have different philosophy if in case he is trying to solve a menial individual problem and an entirely different viewpoint for a design meant for some utopian goal. However, it is pertinent for a designer to always remember the fact that the primary or the intermediate goals should never affect the final goal for if one focuses on the intermediate goals it may so happen that the final design goal is lost. The design approach is a wide-ranging combination of various philosophies that may or may not encompass a guide for specific methods. Some of the approaches may be used to tend to the final goal of the designer while others may strive just to guide the designer in the approach that he/ she may have to take while designing a particular object. The various approaches that have been used over a period of time which have gained popularity are as given below. www.wikipedia.com [Online] (Updated 23 December 2009) Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design [Accessed on 25 December 2009]:- 1. KISS principle, (Keep it Simple Stupid, etc.), which strives to eliminate unnecessary complications. 2. There is more than one way to do it (TIMTOWTDI), a philosophy to allow multiple methods of doing the same thing. 3. Use-centered design, which focuses on the goals and tasks associated with the use of the artifact, rather than focusing on the end user. 4. User-centered design, which focuses on the needs, wants, and limitations of the end user of the designed artifact. Although it may appear that there are more than one philosophy to design a particular thing it should be always kept in mind that the designer should only use more than one philosophy while designing a particular thing as long as two philosophies do not contradict or conflict each other. Designing methods include various aspects such as exploring, redefining, managing, prototyping and trend spotting. The exploration part consists of exploring all the possibilities and rethinking of the existing designs that we see in day to day life around us. Be it the day to day products that we use or the services that are rendered to us, the critical evaluation and research and redefining of a particular area of focus leads us to more than one alternate method to design the product or service to make it much more better than its existing form. Redefining a process of design is equally important design method for it allows us to have a pragmatic look at the design solutions which would eventually lead us to better solutions and guidelines especially in the traditional design activities. Managing is the third step of the design method as it involves managing the first part (exploring) and the defining process which would enable continuous creation of a particular product over a long period of time. Finally the prototyping of a design needs to take place in order to look at the possible situations and the solutions and look at the existing situation and improve it further. The final step involves trend spotting which looks at the various trends and understands the process. The word “design” refers to a pattern with purpose. It is therefore obvious that the design could never be purposeless or for that matter aimless. It would be full of complexity and never random. The purpose of design is important for the designer to define before he/ she starts with the project. The difference between art and design is very subtle. While design is often referred to as a more rigorous form of art, it is not naïve to conclude that the distinction is that of the purpose. If the purpose of the art is clearly defined and distinct then that form of art is called design. However, it is also inevitable that the purpose should be clear or given out by a third person and not the designer himself. Designing itself is associated with “applied” arts rather than other forms of art such as decorative or pure art. It would encompass various forms of applied art, be it the architecture or industrial design. Design is an effort to create a final product with the aim to achieve a product that is pleasing both in the aesthetic terms as well as the functionality terms. While design is a more rigorous form of art, the more rigorous form of design is engineering. The process of design and engineering if viewed pragmatically are simply two ends of the same coin or for that matter in a lateral thinking they overlap each other, where the distinction of design and engineering cannot be clearly drawn. The relationship between designing and production is between the process of thinking and finally giving the thoughts a shape. It can be seen that there is a clear chain of purpose and definition between art and the final product. While art with a purpose is a design, a more rigorous form of design is engineering and if finally it is a finished product it is called production. Culture is different from design in various forms. It is true that the word “culture” itself refers to various meanings depending upon the contexts and discourses that it is being used in. However, culture can be defined as a sum of rule- governed, communal, learned and learnable, transmittable, symbolic activity which is used by two or more persons at a particular time and a place. www.georgetown.edu [Online] Available at www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/Theory-KeyTerms.html [Accessed on 25 December 26, 2009]. The fact that culture does influence design in various ways cannot be denied. The fact that design is intertwined with aesthetics and functionality and that culture is basically a matter of different views of aesthetics makes the both terms inter related. The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and literally means "birth" www.wikipedia.com [Online] (Updated 23 December 2009) Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/nature [Accessed on 25 December 2009]. In a broader sense the word nature is often related to the plants and animals and the surrounding which include the inanimate structures that surround us. If this be so, it is inescapable that the design of nature is the design that one cannot help but admire. Nature can be best termed as a purposeful design with intricate design patterns within design patterns. The purpose of the design of nature cannot be undermined. However, the design of nature is natural or a phenomena that occurs by itself and cannot be altered or bettered upon. In the end it is best to conclude by the famous words of Robin Mathew “Design is where science and art break even.” Read More