Dear All
Some of the list members may be aware of Rich Gold's book 'The
Plenitude'. It is a great read for designers, opening their eyes to a
stuff-breeds-stuff commentary that is at the centre of people's
consumption and collection of endless quantities of artefacts. In the
foreword of the book, John Maeda introduces Rich Gold as "an artist,
composer, designer, inventor, lecturer, and writer'. As such, Gold
had considerable multidisciplinary experiences and offers some
especially insightful (perhaps purposely provocative) views on how
designers and artists work.
Patrons of artists have to believe in what the artist creates. As Gold
states, an artist paints a painting, stares at it, and says "isn’t it
beautiful, it expresses my inner vision perfectly”. However, users and
customers of designers’ artefacts take a different stance. "The
designer paints a painting [metaphorically, of course], stares at it,
then turns it around to the audience and asks ‘Do you like it? No?
Then I’ll change it."
Gold summarises this, for me, perfectly: "for an artist user-testing
is a joke. For a designer it’s fundamental”.
Owain
[Gold, R. (2007), The Plenitude: Creativity, Innovation and Making
Stuff, Cambridge: MIT Press, ISBN 978-0262072892 ((All quotes from
p22)]
--
Assist. Prof. Dr Owain Pedgley
Department of Industrial Design
Middle East Technical University, Turkey
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