WORKING WITH DESIGN PART.1
Introduction
Steven Pinker in his book The Sense of Style writes;
"A coherent text is a designed, and ordered tree of sections within sections criss crossed by arcs that track topics, points, actors and themes, and held together by connections that tie one proposition to the next".
"Like other designed objects it comes about not by accident but by drafting a blueprint, attending to details and maintaining a sense of harmony and balance".
Pinker makes it sound simple. It's not. Seasoned writers might find it easy to create that designed and ordered tree of sections within sections that Pinker refers to, but for most of us most of the time it's a serious challenge to get our ideas across in a manner that resonates with the reader.
Writing is full of mystery, jumbled ideas that obstruct the pathway and elements that don't rest easily alongside each other. These mal fitting elements are what I address in the section on cohesion and harmony in Part 4.
As Pinker says new ideas and better solutions to problems don’t fall out of the sky. They come precisely by the process Pinker describes but what Pinker fails to mention is how much of a struggle this process can be.
The writing of this essay is a design exercise in itself. One that changed a lot along the way. It started out as an explanation of the sequential process employed by the designer starting with the exploration of the problem to be solved through to concepts and finally to formal solutions. It's intent was to give the customer a better understanding of the way a designer works and thereby enhance the relationship and expedite the designer's work.
It was driven by the frustration of working on projects where the lifeblood of the design was being drained by the need for a collection of features, where there was scant regard for style, for unity, for the cohesion of the features to be incorporated in the design.
As I worked on the essay it became clear to me that it was unlikely to be the kind of text that many of my customers would be interested in reading. There was something in my frustration that would not be easy to communicate. To focus on describing the working process of design is of little interest to anyone except designers or those who take a deep interest in design.
What I needed to do was to reveal the element of magic that could be found in things that were well designed whether they be software, a hotel room or the packaging for a cake of soap.
And so the nature and the content of the essay evolved. Large chunks of it were deleted or rewritten and reordered.
Along the way the writing helped to clarify a lot my own half baked ideas. As the various sections were shuffled and reordered it gradually became clear to me what the message was; that with good design you can create a product, a service, or a solution to a problem of any nature that is greater than the sum of parts. A solution that incorporates feeling, style, sophistication or intrigue. A sense of quality, or an emotion that is hard to define. The range of emotions that can be induced with good design is limitless.
As the purpose of the writing became clearer to me the assembling of the ideas became easier to process.
In putting the various sections and sub sections together I found I was drawing on text from a number of writers on design related topics, some of them who I have read and reread multiple times over the years. In particular I drew on the writing of Christopher Alexander, Kevin Kelly and Robert M Pirsig, all three of them far better writers than me. I have quoted these writers and others prolifically throughout the text and provided a list of references and sources of information at the end of the article.
Part way though the exercise of writing this essay I was dealing with a complex problem of designing some production tooling. As I thought the issue through I made a conscious effort to draw on some of the processes described in part two and quite quickly a practical solution came to mind. Just coincidence? Quite possibly. Is my solution original? I have no idea. Maybe someone thought of this before me and is already using it. No matter. The problem is solved and I have to believe it's quite possible that the process of writing the article was at least partly instrumental in finding the solution, if only subconsciously.
Maybe the words that follow will help to solve design problems and add value to products and services that would otherwise just be utilitarian objects.
PART 1 Design - What is it?
Introduction
1.1 Defining Design
Design starts with intent, the vision for something new or a solution to a problem
1.2. What's the Problem?
The importance of being clear about the goal.
PART 2 - How design gets done
2.0. Design Can be Messy. Dealing with Complexity
2.1 Frameworks for progress
2.2. Breaking it Down. Solving Complexity with Subdivision
2.3. Form and Context
Good design is a satisfying fit of form and context
2.4 Style adds value
PART 3. What could go wrong?
3.1 Designing for solutions that are both enduring and alluring.
3.2 Let's talk about it
PART 4. Making Magic
4.1 On beauty in Design
4.2 Cohesion and Harmony in Design
4.3. Beauty sends a Message
4.4 Beauty in Product Design
4.5 Beauty in Maths and Physics
4.6. Beauty in Complexity
4.7 Beauty in Simplicity
4.8 That Intrinsic Unfathomable Quality
4.9 Beauty is Human
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