Dear all,
As interesting as the discussion has been to this point it is already
taking on a certain déjà vu quality. This is to be expected given the
fact, as Ken points out, that design is a human activity. In that vein, it
appears that it is equally a human activity to divide a subject in this
case, design into as many bits as possible, create categories, and then
defend our respective positions.
Perhaps we need to stand back for a moment and perceive the design
landscape with another set of eyes. The sagacity of the Balinese craftsman
comes to mind when he says, "We do not have art; we only do as well as
possible." Design appears to have taken the opposite tact. It has created
boundaries, 500 or so at last count. Instead of creating lines that
delineate one design activity from another with outdated terminology that
only serves to create camps that often prefer not to see what we have in
common but only what makes us different why not declare that design does
not have boundaries and that we strive to do as well as possible.
Otherwise, design could become infinitely fragmented and for what purpose.
Jacques Giard PhD
Professor of Design
The Design School
480.965.1373
http://web.me.com/jrgiard/Site/Welcome.html
Go Green! Please do not print this e-mail unless it is completely
necessary.
On 6/14/12 5:34 AM, "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>Dear All,
>
>This discussion has been rushing forward so swiftly that itıs been
>hard to keep up. Three quick thoughts:
>
>1) Robin Hodge wrote:
>
>³Nice to see that theory v practice is raising its ugly head again.
>Mind you - that uglyı is only in relative terms. To paraphrase de
>Bono - Martin is right, the theorists are wrongı - those who hold
>up usabilityı studies as the way forward are mired in logical - and
>therefore prohibitive analysis. Martin uses that wonderful word
>empathyı, I would add understandingı, but then as a
>practitioner what would I know? All of my packaging designs are
>wrongı if one follows usability rules. However they do tend to
>be successful for some very strange reason. And I do know that
>martinıs bookjackets etc are quite successful. Please tell us where
>we have gone wrong.²
>
>I take Robinıs point and partly agree, but I donıt see this as
>theory versus practice. This is a case of two theories of practice. At
>some point, this deserves a deeper conversation. As it is, Robin and
>Martin arenıt wrong. There are several kinds of theories that apply --
>Terry is looking for something universal and causal, and thatıs a long
>way off. I applaud the search recognizing that any scientific search
>gets more things wrong than right for the first few decades -- sometimes
>the first few centuries.
>
>2) Martin Salisbury wrote:
>
>³I was particularly interested to hear you explain to me about the
>design of a book jacket. Have you ever designed a book jacket,
>Terry?²
>
>It may be talking out of school, but I have seen some books that Terry
>designed and they were not easy to read. The type was too small to e
>legible, and the pages were cluttered. It was a bit like my experience
>of the unreadable paper edition of Design Science by Vladimir Hubka and
>Ernst Eder. Great book, but only accessible to normal eyes once Fil
>Salustri made a web edition available at URL:
>
> http://deseng.ryerson.ca/DesignScience/
>
>And I am going to disagree with Terry here -- Martinıs work with
>books is not ³art and design² in the sense of an art form that one
>practices for artıs sake. Rather, it is an art in the sense that the
>professional practice of medicine is an art or the professional practice
>of engineering is an art. (Martinıs illustrations are also art works,
>of course.) But book design is a professional skill based on
>understandable and manageable principles that do not simply boil down to
>computers selecting among possible factorial combinations.
>
>For the record, I note that many young designers cannot manage a
>readable page, either. The fashion for too-small type and unreadable
>page layouts makes many design magazines superficially pretty and
>utterly useless. What Martin does -- and what good book designers do in
>general -- is to design a readable page or text. In my view, there is a
>rigorous application of principles involved. We can express some of
>these in scientific terms -- others by rules of thumb. But this skill
>cannot be axiomatized any more than the practice of medicine. The
>practice of medicine requires judgment, skill, and experience together
>with reasoned heuristics, as well as an understanding of what we humans
>have learned through scientific inquiry.
>
>3) Eduardo Corte-Real wrote:
>
>³Again the particularity of English tend to blur your arguments. The
>fact that design designates both a common human activity and a
>discipline allows you (and others) to do it. What you surreptitiously
>designate as technical design is nothing but engineering and as such
>should stay.²
>
>As I see it, design is indeed a common human activity, but it is not a
>single discipline. Rather, design is a series of disciplines that meet
>in the frame of planning purposeful change toward a desired future.
>
>Without making the full argument here, I will point to a paper,
>³Creating Design Knowledge.² In it, I discuss these issues:
>
> http://hdl.handle.net/2134/1360
>
>In the current issue of Visible Language, I also consider some aspects
>of the multiple design disciplines. Since there is wide agreement on the
>fact that much design is created by interdisciplinary teams, it makes
>sense that these are all potentially design disciplines.
>
>Friedman, Ken. 2012. ³Models of Design: Envisioning a Future for
>Design Education.² Visible Language, Vol. 46, No. 2, pp. 128-151.
>
>
>http://visiblelanguagejournal.com/web/abstracts/abstract/models_of_design_
>envisioning_a_future_design_education
>
>As Terry noted, when we did the Wonderground conference in Lisbon,
>people self-selected 500 or so different fields as their expert areas
>for reviewing. Fewer than 5% of these represent fields classified as art
>and design. It remains the case that many questions remain open about
>the commonalities and differences of these many design fields and the
>appropriate forms of practice and research appropriate to each or to
>groups and clusters among them.
>
>Warm wishes,
>
>Ken
>
>Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
>Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
>| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 |
>Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design
|
