What is Design? - Marrise Mari

This lecture was fairly interesting because it taught me what it means to be a designer. The first thing I took from this lecture is that the key to design is how it relates to the people, my audience and the public."Design is the concious effort to impose meaningful order", this is a quote by Victor Papanek, author of Design for the Real World. Papanek was referenced heavily throughout this lecture. I will speak about his ideals in more detail further in this report. What this quote means is that no product stands alone. There is a process which results in the product, whatever it may be, becoming the solution to a problem.Designers have to determine creative outcomes in order to answer the problem at hand. Planning and research are essential to any design outcome, this is why I always make sure to research thoroughly and plan as carefully as i can before answering any brief I am given.

Papaneks Function Complex.

Papanek introduced The Function Complex. This complex was published in Design for the Real World, a book which I own. The first point on the Function Complex is method. This is the choice of tools, materials and processes and the interaction between them.Secondly comes association.This is the differences of values between audiences, be it cultural, age or education. A persons background can affect how they recieve the product and whether or not it caters to their needs. This brings us to another point of the Function Complex - need. All of the needs of the consumer must be satisfied. Most design fulfils evanescent desires but does not satisfy the genuine needs of man. These are the psychological, economical, social, spiritual intellectual and technological needs of man. These are not entirely easy to satisfy, but as designer, it is our duty to try to satisfy as many of these needs as possible with our product. Before this lecture and the research that followed it, I never really thought of these genuine needs as something I needed to satisfy. We, as designers, tend to fulfil wants instead of needs. After looking at this, I have realised that I need to think more about genuine needs of the consumer. How will this affect them psychologically, socially or intellectually? There is more to design than meets the eye. The next point on the Function Complex is use. This is possibly the most simple point - How will it be used? As a tool? For communication? As a symbol? For information? A designer must plan this out before beginning work on a product. We also must take into consideration the penultimate point - aesthetics. What will the product look like? Will it be ergonomic? The dictionary defines aesthetics as "a theory of the beautiful, in tastes and art" when in actual fact, whether or not the product is aesthetically pleasing, in my opinion, is not the most important point. Many designers get caught up in aesthetics and put all their efforts into making their products look good while compromising on quality elsewhere. I agree that designers should use the aesthetics as an expression of themselves. I tend to look at the aesthetics at the end of my design process, after deciding on how best to satisfy and answer the brief. The last point of the Function Complex was the hardest for me to understand and something completely new to me. This is telesis - the deliberate utilisation of nature and society to fulfil a design goal. Papanek says that "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 socioeconomic order in which it is to operate". This means that the product must be current and relevant in order to succeed in the society it is to be integrated into. I still do not fully understand the telesis of a product and make it my aim to do more research by reading more of Design for the Real World.
    Design will always cause pollution. There are 6 key phases that will result in a production of pollution. The first is material choice. As designers, we should make and informed and concious decision when choosing a material. We should choose something sustainable, something that does not cost the planet a lot during manufacture or recycling. We should also make sure we cause as little pollution as we can when manufacturing the product we design. During this manufacturing, the amount of packaging should be kept to a minimum. This will significantly reduce the amount of pollution created by designers. Also, less packaging will cause less waste, another big factor in pollution caused by design. One of the very biggest pollution-causing problems is the matter of transport.Regardless of what form of transport, aside from walking or cycling, pollution will always be created. It is our job to get our product to the client as efficiently as possible.
 To sum up this part of the lecture, we were told the "10 Commandments of Art and Design". This basically recapped everything we had previously learnt and I felt that I was being patronised in the way this was delivered. I do want to be a better designer and do good for the planet and the people on it but i did not like the way this subject was concluded.
  The next part of this lecture outlined the constructs of design. Sir George Cox, a UK business man, says "Design is what links creativity and innovation.It shapes ideas to become practical and attractive propositions for users or customers.Design may be described as creativity deployed to a specific end.". I have no ideas as to what this could mean, as it was not described to me in the lecture. I am struggling to understand this concept and may, again need to apply more time to researching constructs of design.
  After a brief overview of some books that may be helpful, it was on to the next topic, design entity and the three constructs of design. this approach splits design into doing, living or interpreting  I believe that my design philosophy lies with the latter. I like to interpret briefs and put my own spin on them. I like to use my work to communicate my ideas with the client, whoever it may be. I also believe that I am starting to develop the design thinking mindset. I am aware that design is centred around the human race. Everything is designed and everything has an impact on how humans live their life. I am also starting to develop a care for who i am working for, my clients. I want to do a good job to please them, not only so that they use my services again but also that I can rest safe in the knowledge that they are happy with the product I have given them. I have also began to do some collaboration work but I could work on this. I did not realise the importance of collaboration until having a discussion in this lecture. I should make myself more flexible within my field of work in order to make myself capable to cross platforms. This is known as a T shaped designer. It's the difference between being a designer and just thinking like one. It broadens our approach to design as a whole.
   I thought this essay was very informative and I learnt a lot after doing a bit more research and having time to go over my notes and the presentation. I had to do this because I felt that the lecture was presented in a way that was above my knowledge and capability. I could not keep up with the speed at which the content was delivered and there wasn't time for any discussions. I feel I could have learnt more if it was little more informal.