What is Design? - GD03

There are two very different definitions of design, 'Design with a capital 'D'' and 'design with a little 'd''.

This year, we are being asked very explicitly to define what it is we think 'great design' is. A good first step is to look upon the dictionary, where we can find a definition of design in a very loose sense.


Dictionary.com:

Design:

Verb (1) to prepare the preliminary sketch or the plans for (a work to be executed), especially to plan the form and structure of.

Noun (1) an outline, sketch, or plan, as of the form and structure of a work of art, an edifice, or a machine to be executed or constructed.

So to design is to plan or sketch, the result is the design. But this is a very limp definition of design; what man-made things are not either art, machine or edifice? The conclusion here is that design is the plan, and the outline of anything, and also the planning and outlining thereof.

What we must also remember however, is that despite design being seen as a process in itself, it more often occurs as an intuitive and direct part of the production. When we make a cake, or dress ourselves, organise our desk, make a cup of tea or write a memo we are planning and structuring the form and the arrangement of the following decisions; we might prefer a cup with 80% tea water brewed for 1:30 with 1.5g of sugar and 20% semi-skimmed milk, and these considerations are 'designed in' at every stage of the process. design is a component of basically everything we do.

Can we design the perfect cup of tea? The modernists probably think we can.

So there we have it, design is one, but such a definition is very unhelpful. In this context, 'great design' is anything that anyone wants, which might be the one truth at the basic level, but it carries little of instructive value. The above is what I will term 'design with a little d' - design as a process and result to meet certain external ends.

The reason I have approached a split in the definition comes from a number of sources. I was quite annoyed by Nikolaus Pevsner when, in An Outline of Eurpoean Architecure, he opened by saying:

"A bicycle shed is a building; Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture. The term architecture applies only to buildings designed with a view to aesthetic appeal"

But in the context of him writing his book, this is an essential statement, he aims to write about proper, fancy buildings and their development over time. This will tell us a very different, higher-class version of philosophical history than a study of vernacular building over the same period.

Peter Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects was once angry that design criticism focused too much on political correctness:

In a way, he is right: 

"as if the delivery of social justice is the architects competency" 

being a key quote. One way of looking at design is first asking what is the designers core compitency? A proper Designer wakes up in the morning, makes themselves a coffee in their Bialetti Moka, puts on the all black Yohji Yamamoto gear, drives to work in their Audi TT, arrives at their Richard Rodgers office building, picks the Moleskine up from the Vitsoe 606, sits in the Herman Miller, gets out the LAMY, turns on the Tizio, and gets to work. But what are they there for?

For that, we must look at some more aloof definitions:

Le Corbusier, 

"If my house works well, I am grateful, as I would be to the railroads and the telephone company. But my heart has not been touched. However if the walls, rising up against the sky, affect my feelings, I become aware of your intentions. You were harsh, charming, or dignified. Your stones tell me so"

John Dewey, 'Art as Experience'-

"The word "design" has a double meaning. It signifies purpose and it signifies arrangement, mode of composition ... A work of art is poor in the degree in which they exist in separation ... Only when constituent parts of a whole have the unique end of contributing to the consummation of a conscious experience, do design and shape lose superimposed character and become form"

Bruno Munari, Design as Art

"What is a Designer? ... He is a planner with an aesthetic sense ...  He gives the right weight to each part of the project in hand, and he knows that the ultimate form of the object is psychologically vital when the potential buyer is making up his mind"

Paul Rand, Conversations with students

“Design is relationships. Design is a relationship between form and content.”

What we can garner from these more academic, authoritative statements is that the Designer's job is to control the aesthetic experience of any given solution. And I don't take the word aesthetic very lightly, I don't mean mere styling. Yes, the look of the product is a big part of the end result, but to be a completely controlled experience one must take into account the weight, feel, impact, sound, and most importantly the user experience too*.

A design that focuses on delivering aesthetic experience as one of it's core goals is therefore an example of 'Big D' design. At the start of the year I came to school with the following piece of paper.

Here, Great Design is considered something of philosophical purity. And that is what we see when we consider most of the 'icons' of academic Good Design. It is the result of such a complete process where style, production, feel and use have all been considered with the aesthetic experience as the final goal.

In class, this ruffled a few feathers. The Tizio is flawed, masculine and overly expensive, but is is also aesthetic, which was really it's only job. This is why the split between design and Design was necessary.

'design', that is, design-with-a-little-d, has many factors; these are the factors concerned with production in a wider sense: Financial concerns, Marketing, Legality, Safety. There are, more viscerally, the Ethical concerns of design: mass second-world labour, the environment, the emancipation of the poor and the disabled. Victor Papanek is our greatest source on such Ethical issues:

"Only a small part of our responsibility lies in the area of aesthetics."

"Much recent design has satisfied only evanescent wants and desires, while the genuine needs of man have often been neglected by the designer."

The above are totally true, but we flip-flop back to Peter Schumacher.

"as if the delivery of social justice is the architects [designers] competency" 

In fact, both are true, and I look to belittle neither point of view. Having said that, Peter Schumacher is obviously the candidate for the 'most evil man in design' prize.

With two definitions of design, we can have two definitions of 'great design'.

From the view of 'design' as a tool, design is a process and a capability with which we get from point A to point B. The question here is what do we do with this ability, which is an ethical question. In little-d design, 'great design' is 'great' done via 'design'. This is what Papanek advocates. The problem here is that there is a very, very large field of 'great' possibilities, most of to which Designers are not directly in a position to help; their solutions are Political, Financial and Charitable. 'Great' but not 'Design'. We could spend all day doing directly good things, but then why did we even bother becoming designers in the first place?

From the view of 'Design' as an aesthetic end in itself, we are in a clear, but more ethically ambiguous place. We all enjoy good food, music, art and so on, but what is their real value? In this context, it doesn't matter. The designer, artist, architect and chef are here to make great things, that is what they are for. Is a phone worse because a seven-year-old child died mining the cobalt for it? Most of us have one and enjoy one regardless. 'Design' is fenced away from these concerns. 'great Design is 'Design' done well' that is all it can ever hope to be.

***

Why didn't I just call one of the 'designs' planning, or aesthetics? Because I am not yet ready to relegate one of them to 'not-design' just yet. Clearly there is a very tightly strung network of concerns around the whole subject, the subject-matter of design is one that can be delighting and horrifying in equal measure.

Notes:

*The common assumption is that user experience design is necessarily the practice of 'good' user interaction. This is not always the case. A well-thought-out and aesthetic negative user interaction is just as valid.