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Design
What is it?
Who does it?
How is it done?
Can we evaluate it?
What is it?
As a verb it is:
a plan, that involves organization and problem solving.
the conscious effort to impose meaningful order.
Papanek
finding the optimum in a particular set of circumstances
As a noun what is it? A package? The
clothing you wear? A rock on the beach?
Who Designs?
All humans are designers. True or False?
Should we include other animals in our definitions?
"After Betsy What?"
The design process
The Design Process:
Logical Sequence of Events
Accept the situation - find reasons for going on - accept the
challenge?
Analyze - get the facts and the feelings.
Define - determine the goals.
Ideate - generate options.
Select - choose from the options.
Implement - take action.
Evaluate - review and plan again.
How Can We Evaluate Design?
Use
Does it work?
Ink bottles should not tip over.
Shoes should not hurt feet.
"As in any reasonably constructed home, alarm clocks (and toilets) seldom
travel through the air at speeds approaching 100 MPH. Streamlining clocks is
out of place."
Nature is a marvelous designer!
Need
"Much recent design has satisfied only evanescent wants and desires, while
the genuine needs of man have often been neglected by the designer."
Papanek
What do we NEED?
Telesis
"The deliberate, purposeful utilization of the processes of nature and
society to obtain particular goals." Dictionary
"The telesic content of a design must reflect the times and conditions that
have given rise to it, and must fit in with the general human socio-economic
order in which it is to operate." Papanek, p 34-5
Association
Our psychological conditioning, often going back to earliest childhood
memories, comes into play and predisposes us to or against certain values.
Designers must recognize that conditioning and work with it.
Aesthetics
"A theory of the beautiful in taste and art."
"It is a tool, one of the most important in the repertory of the designer.
A tool that helps in shaping forms and colors into entities that move us,
please us, and are beautiful, exciting, filled with delight, meaningful."
Method
The interaction of tools, processes and materials.
An honest use of materials.
Never making one thing look like another.
Integrity.
Summary:
Questions to Help Evaluate Design
Does it work?
Are all the parts necessary to make it work?
Is it needed?
Or are we satisfying needs induced only by advertising fads?
Does it fit with systems already in place?
Does it fit with an individual’s or society’s conditioning?
Summary: (Continued)
Is it good method? Does it have integrity?
Is it beautiful?
Does it move us, delight us, please us? Is it meaningful?
Do all of the elements of design have beauty?
Color and Light
Line ------------------
Form and Space
Texture and pattern
Written Assignment # 2:
For the next class period - Bring a well designed object.
Be prepared to explain why it is an example of good design based on the
previous questions.
For your written assignment find a poorly designed object and compare it to
the well designed object using the function complex.
Conclusion: Victor Papanek
All humans are designers. All that we do, almost all the time is design,
for design is basic to all human activity. The planning and patterning of any
act towards a desired, forseeable end constitutes the design process… Design
is composing an epic poem, executing a mural, painting a masterpiece, writing
a concerto. But design is also cleaning and reorganizing a desk drawer,
pulling an impacted tooth, baking an apple pie, choosing sides for a back-lot
baseball game, and educating a child. - Design is the conscious effort to
impost meaningful order.
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