Ken,
Mechanical engineers design machines, industrial manufacturing
systems, . ......
....... The list of
designers who are not called designers is lengthy.
You have indeed compiled an exhaustive list of 'non designer' designers.
The main difference between them and the public perception of a designer
(i.e. 'Changing Rooms', Yves Saint Laurent, Jonathan Ive at Apple, etc) is
aesthetics.
Many people create - they model, engineer, fabricate, compute, program,
construct, layout, draft, organize and a myriad of other terms describing
the traditional way in which things have been created. Design as a word
could be swapped out for any of these activities and hence, to some extent,
negate the list.
However, not all of these folk have a developed sense of aesthetics or
fitness for purpose (FFP) , which is why design came about in the first
place.
Try as we might, there is a fundamental chasm between those that create in
this aesthetic and FFP fashion, and those that create to fulfill a need, a
specification or a requirement.
Long live the 'commercial artists' of this world.
Design originally had this awful label and it is an amazing fact that
technologically based fields now look to be classified as 'designers'.
Would this still hold true if they were to be referred to as 'commercial
artists'?
Mark Breitenberg of Art Center, USA in his most recent ICSID publication
(June 2003?) relates to the holistic way in which early designers worked -
particularly referencing Loewy, Dreyfus, Teague, etc. and how design and
technology should be merged. He even goes as far to say that this is how he
thinks design should be taught - not the specialisations that we have
today.
Maybe this is also how design (research) should progress - understanding
the classic renaissance mode - that some 'creators' function in.
The Bauhaus, Loewy and Arts and Crafts all share this 'renaissance' method
of thinking and yet were so dissimilar.
flip - back to talent (sorry)
Again, the elusive subject of design talent - is at the fundamental core of
this holistic, aesthetic, FFP, creative thought process.
If talent can be shown to be taught or instilled in a design student - fine
- otherwise design education is still only preparing a handful of students.
No matter what we come to understand about the process of design - if the
success of any design is based upon this fact - this design talent -
something that cannot be fundamentally trained, or taught, or placed in any
curriculum there is also a chasm within design research.
Perfecting and preparing might be more achievable a process to consider. An
apprenticeship, as it were.
Design education has helped many (including myself) live an impossible
dream - until their final year.
Plumbers, carpenters, engineers, programmers and mechanics (see previous
list) are so expensive - as there are not enough of them.
Glenn Johnson
Industrial Design Manager
Industrial Design Studio, B/E Aerospace Inc.
1455 Fairchild Rd. Winston-Salem NC 27105-4588 USA
Tel. (1) 336 744 3143 Fax. (1) 336 744 3207
B/E Industrial Design Studio
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