My brother has berated me for having a lack of twaddle on my blog. You'll be soorreeee.... but why should I write my own when there's so much fascinating twaddle being written by other people? Ben Hopson, for example, sets down some interesting thoughts on movement in design, which I have to agree is a long-neglected area. It's not enough that something should be well-designed from a static point of view; interaction is almost always dynamic, and the dynamics of an object are often neglected. How do we describe them? More importantly, how do we research them and develop them into a feature? Well, using video, Ben. Obviously. Duh. But it's still a neglected field, so good on you for thinking about it.
Haven't had time to check out the videos, but if they're as novel as his writing then I'm sure they're fascinating.
5 comments:
Sorry, but I design for functionality, not for the sake of art, I'm afraid.
Philistine ;)
Well, form follows function in all the best design. But whether you notice it or not, I believe your primary responses to your environment are emotional - primal, if you like. We can pretend to be rational beings, but that's a thin veneer of bollocks. Ergo, everything is about emotional response, which is art, right?
Alternatively: ergonomics is a function - it's as functional as it gets, is you ask me. Emotional response is a form of ergonomics. Art is about getting an emotional response. Therefore, art is functional ;)
Movement can fit Hector's needs as well. Car trunk doors are a good example. The perfect trunk door should open in some direction other than into your face, be easy to open and close, stay open when undisturbed, yet not so complex as to easily fail (all functional requirements, not form). I've seen almost as many variations on trunk design as I've seen cars, and few do it well.
Alright, well, I'm an industrial designer (Well, really a design engineer, but I like to delude myself), so I guess I am working to slightly orthogonal criteria. And of course there are practical considerations which must be satisfied - but then even art has to submit to the laws of physics, so we're all working under practical constraints.
It's interesting - I was pointed at a website for a new social design network, Design21. I read their introduction and was immediately irritated by the way they defined 'design'. I know it's a massively difficult area, but the definitions I prefer are the ones which descrbie it as a medium rather than an action or a tool. We're all constantly altering our envrinonment, whether by rearranging the cutlery or making space rockets. Both of those, to my mind, are design. And by that definition, art is simply one extreme of design, in that it is aimed at provoking a purely emotional response rather than creating a physical response; altering our perception of the world. That, imho, alters our experience of the world in just as design-y a way as objects which alter our experience of the world by physical interaction. Or visual intervention ;)
I know it's not a very useful definition, because it's so broad, but hey - designers are always shifting categories. I've done a little bit of graphic design, and I'd love to have a crack at architecture.
love it.
you're all poets this week.
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