• At one time back in the 1950's there was an effort to introduce the term Techics but the only word currently in use is Design.
• The habit of calling a finished product a design is convenient but wrong. Design is something we do, not what we have done.
• Design is what happens between conceiving an idea and fashioning the means to carry it out.
• Designing is what goes on in order to arrive at an intelligent equation between purpose and construction, thus converting a problem into an opportunity.
• "Design is important because if it were not designed it would not be made."
• Designers are the blue-collar workers of the art world.
• Painters solve their own problems, designers solve other peoples problems.
• People divide their lives between time spent earning money and time spent spending it, designers generally lead a seamless existence in which work and play are synonymous.
• Issey Miyake, "The designer is not an artist."
• Saul Bass, "Design is thinking made visual."
• Design is applied thought
• Nancy Banks Smith, "In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it's modern architecture."
The is no escaping design in the human world. No matter where you turn, no matter where you look, something somewhere has been designed. The whisk in the kitchen, the remote control for the television, the desk lamp above your head, the mechanical pencil in your hand, even the keyboard I'm typing on. It all started somewhere as an idea in someone's head.
According to a source in Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways, reading and writing equal literacy, reckoning and figuring equal numeracy, but wroughting and wrighting have no specific word, it's just described as the creation of things. For years we have been using the word Design to fill that description. Fletcher questions whether or not the word 'design' is the right word. Many claim that 'design is something that we do, not what we have done. Dictionary.com states that design is to plan and fashion artistically and skillfully. Well, that pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Yet, if they can decide only now (after how many years?) that Pluto is no longer a planet then I'm sure we can still argue whether or not 'design' is the appropriate word.
"Painters solve their own problems, designers solve other people's problems." In Picasso's Guernica painting the only struggle he had is how he wanted to portray people suffering after a Nazi bombing in Guernica, Spain. I'm sure he wanted to paint it in a way that people would understand but he also adds himself in the painting. When it comes to design the style of the designer is pretty much hidden from the world. For example, when one sees this painting, they might automatically think it's a Picasso style. But when you look at an everyday object, such as a whisk, who originally designed it? It's just an object that someone designed to make wiping eggs easier. The Picasso painting isn't made to help people in their lives, not like designers do.
Nancy Banks Smith once said, "In my experience, if you have to keep the lavatory door shut by extending your left leg, it's modern architecture." Certainly, it is a unique way to solve a problem. But modern architecture isn't just to solve problems, but a new way of expressing art. And yes, the architect is a designer since they have to make something as complex, as the image above, not only artistically appealing but functional.
Saul Bass describes design as "thinking made visual." In the image to the right, Bass describes the title to the movie, Love In The Afternoon, by a light background pulling down a dark shade. How perfect is that! By using a light background he emphasizes the time of day and using the shade for privacy. He clearly shows the idea of something without being too literal. Both the image and the title balance each other out, because if you subtract one or the other, you wouldn't get the same effect.
Issey Miyake, a Japanese fashion designer, once said, "The designer is not an artist." Since when is a designer not necessarily an artist? Well, as I mentioned in the beginning, that subject can be argued. It seems that Miyake either didn't want to be considered an artist or he was being too modest. One might consider that if an object is only functional, then it's a design. But if someone likes it, its art. Have people ever considered that fact that it could be both? Innocently, a 10 year old boy once said, "Design is important because if it were not designed it would not be made." How true that statement is.
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