It's the attribute of being unusually effective and simple. That's the accepted definition and it made me ponder that word.
Great designers excel and achieving unusual effectiveness and a clarity or simplicity in its expression. At the dawn of human civilization, design refined, modified, and improved solutions for real problems like shelter, food, sanitation, and clothing. Then, at some point, design was dimished to merely an art.
For example, the iPhone is considered a triumph of design. But what problem does it solve? If we judged the iPhone on the importance of the problem that it strives to improve, it would no doubt be seen as a failure.
Consider this. Apple has a team of designers and a process that results in unmistakeable elegance. If they simply took the time to ask themselves, "What should we design? What does the world need the most?" If they started by designing the problem without commercial bias, that team of designers may very well be capable of ending desertification in Sub-Saharan Africa effectively ending the humanitarian autrocities of Darfur. Or maybe they'd be capable of discovering a way to create tenure in urban slums in Delhi, stopping the demolition of millions of people's homes.
Elegance is so difficult to achieve, but designers know how to do it. The question now is, will design end its centuries long vacation and get back to work, advancing solutions to real problems, and achieving elegance for the world's biggest problems?
Great designers excel and achieving unusual effectiveness and a clarity or simplicity in its expression. At the dawn of human civilization, design refined, modified, and improved solutions for real problems like shelter, food, sanitation, and clothing. Then, at some point, design was dimished to merely an art.
For example, the iPhone is considered a triumph of design. But what problem does it solve? If we judged the iPhone on the importance of the problem that it strives to improve, it would no doubt be seen as a failure.
Consider this. Apple has a team of designers and a process that results in unmistakeable elegance. If they simply took the time to ask themselves, "What should we design? What does the world need the most?" If they started by designing the problem without commercial bias, that team of designers may very well be capable of ending desertification in Sub-Saharan Africa effectively ending the humanitarian autrocities of Darfur. Or maybe they'd be capable of discovering a way to create tenure in urban slums in Delhi, stopping the demolition of millions of people's homes.
Elegance is so difficult to achieve, but designers know how to do it. The question now is, will design end its centuries long vacation and get back to work, advancing solutions to real problems, and achieving elegance for the world's biggest problems?
1 comments:
I see what you mean, at least a little bit. Can you help clarify for me?
For instance, there's the classic example of the Kickstart water pump (the one-person irrigation system that helps desperately poor farmers irrigate their fields). http://www.villagethegame.com/uploaded_images/lineworkshading.jpg
The design idea is definitely beautiful - how would you rate the aesthetics of the design? (And how important are the aesthetics, i.e. color, shape, etc.?)
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