What is Design?

What is Design?

Below is the more than 1000 word essay on me trying to share my view on "what is design". I spend the entire night doing it! Anyway wanna say a BIG THANKS to the people i ask online last night for their opinions on their various styles of design processes,from motion designers,to graphic designers,to product designers,apparel designers too.

Well its a bit long... but would love to hear your comments on What is DESIGN or ART to you! THANKS! =)

Topic: What is Design? Explain and describe its process.

Design is a word that can be comprehended into many areas and seen in many perspectives. Such as the huge debate if design is art or is art design. I feel that by evaluating this statement one can get some idea to what design is. My take would be design is not art however design can be considered art.

I believed design is coming out with a solution to an issue, it involved many considerations, like how there are design principles considered such as its composition, geometry, emphasis, symmetry, asymmetry etc. And most of all is it functional is it ergonomically friendly for users and many more considerations. It involved others instead of just one feelings and expression alone and there's usually a process and development in an idea.

However, "Why art is NOT design", as to me art is an expression and something personal and how one may perceive as beauty to them. And the topic of art it self has so many more genres too from paintings, to dance, to music, theater etc.

Then the next question “why design can still be considered art?”, as if the initial idea or issue is inspired from one expression and feel for the project, it can be viewed as an art form as well. So the intend of designing something may be perceive into either a design yet still an art. Anyway this statement is a quite subjective.

After sharing those thoughts on what is design even comparing to art. I can conclude that design definitely has a process to it before coming out with the final product or solution. The process may vary to some extent in different types of design traits, but at the end of the day I believed they all follow very similar styles in the development of stages in the process.

I did a quick survey asking friends from various courses and design traits such as product designers, graphic designers, motion designers and fashion designer to see their style of design process, and than comparing their process with my more familiar interior design processes. I hope my evaluation on this aid in my conclusion of my personal view of the process in design in general.

The initial stages in all the design traits I evaluated would start of with asking the client what is the need and aspects they want, or for some of the motion designers they said that it starts with just an “idea” or conceptualize it before proposing the idea. While product designers & fashion designers are pretty much similar to interior designers or architects where one research first by finding out issues by analyzing trends, target market, existing product etc. So in general I guess I can conclude the initial stage for all designers is coming out with an issue to work and develop from.

The second stage would be evaluating and studying the needs of that issue. For example for interior designs and architects one has to do a precedent study first by doing a site analysis as well as comparing with other design project out there which are similar to that particular site, place or product. The process of getting information can be through the internet, books, newspaper articles or even experts. All this contextual issues around that particular site aids one in finding a concept and solution to that issue. From that issue, some factors such as environment, culture, historical significance, demographics of place has to be taken in consideration too. Like for environment, would it be sustainable over time, would the climatic influence the location? For culture, would the lifestyle of the people there influence the issue in some way? And is there any historical value in that area? Were there are other design suggestions to this place in the past? And than demographics analysis with recordings at different times of the day of the different type of traffic flow, the number of people , and types of people coming and moving in that area. From the survey I did, I presume the second stage of evaluation of issue in general is applicable to all other design traits too.

The third stage, after gathering all the necessary information, one should be able to come out with a design concept. I feel the style of approach in getting a design concept is quite subjective, some people use elements of the area and translate their design base on those elements. For me, I would do a mind map to evaluate all the information I have and play with the words until I can get a translation of the word into an architectural principal to follow. For example, I can infer a need to solve “social interactions”, and basing the word of “interactions” into architecture principal to “interlocking of space” as my design concept. This style of formulating a design concept may vary in the other design traits but at the end of the day I presume that all traits need a design concept at least to develop in to the next stage.

The forth stage, would be gathering all the information from step one to step three and to formulate it into a organize design brief which includes a solution to what the designer wants to see at the end of the whole design process and development. However, this stage may even happen right at the start when the client gives a brief for the designer to follow, so this stage depends on the designer creating the brief or the client.

The fifth stage onwards, is where one will start to developed and explore the ideas based on the chosen design concepts through sketches, mock ups etc. With much exploration and comparison with the initial analysis, the ideas are then short listed based on evaluation from peers, lecturers, experts, etc, to see if it meets the needs of the design brief. And I believed this stage does apply to all design traits too, as we all need to evaluate our work and develop it.

The sixth stage after the chosen idea pass through the evaluation stage, it is further developed being detailed even more and factors such as colour, material, type of furniture are considered right into as micro as possible like how the design feature is fixed and built for example.

And last of all, all this development, process and final solution are being presented in various means of media that best showcase it be it power point or storyboard for example. And this is where it s critique by experts for further examining of the proposed solution can be either further developed in the future or it is successfully done enough to be build. And like for every other design traits too, after the critique is either time to be marketed or use or further developed from there onwards.

The processes I shared from the view of an interior designer and architect may vary like I said before, as this are the process I would normally go through when designing something. It need not be exactly going through this format all the time but it’s a good process to follow.

In conclusion, after sharing all my thoughts and opinions on design, I guess I can conclude that all designs definitely goes through a process before the solution and in general the process in all design traits are quite similar in some way or another despite the many different school of thoughts. At the end of the day design will never end, there will always be room for improvement!

With References:

Quick survey (for opinions of their design traits)…
Andrew Lai (Motion designer), Jeremy Ho(MOI),yr 2, Kenneth Tay(PID), Yr 3, Chun Yeung (VSC), Yr 3, Ethel Shin (ADM),Yr 2