Hi Eduardo,
There seem to be two different paths to the etymological history of the term 'design'
The etymological dictionary (and Mirriam Websters Scholastic) has the etymological development of 'design' (as distinct from disegno) from 'designare' and with the meaning now given to 'designate' in the sense of 'to decide'
Terzidis follows a similar path in which design originates in 'designare' in his 'The Etymology of Design: A pre-Socratic Perspective' in Design Issues.
As does Flusser, who links the 'designare' version of 'design' via German etymological pathways to 'mechos' meaning 'a stratagem' in his 'On the Word design: An Etymological Essay' in the Design Report
Krippendorf (Product Semantics 1989) also quotes the etymology of 'design' as 'designare'
It seems like we have an pathway of definition of the term 'design' that goes back to a definition based on 'designare' with a flavour of 'designation' and 'deciding' that has carried through in some fields such as engineering , and another pathway from the Renaissance with literature in a small number of the fields (art and architecture) immediately post the development of moveable type printing that use the term 'design' in a particular way that link it to drawing. It appears the origin of the word in 'designare' was rather different and was independent of 'drawing' but parallel to it. It may simply be more that autjhors that used this drawing-based definition of definitions of designing as drawing were early off the blocks in terms of mass printing (as you might expect??).
One explanation, and I'd really welcome advice from experts on this, may due to the primary mechanism for holding and transmitting the intellectual knowledge of the Greeks and Romans to Europe in the Middle ages being via Persian and Arab intellectuals' writing. As I understand it, the essence of 'designare' in its broader sense of planning and strategy making was translated into the Farsi 'Naqsh' or 'Naqs'. This term, unlike many other Arabic and Farsi terms that become adopted in for example Portuguese, doesn't appear to have emerged directly into European languages and instead it may be the work of Arab and Persian intellectuals relating to 'designare'/'naqsh' became translated across the intellectual disjoint directly back into the Latin with some 'looseness'.
Warm regards,
Terry
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eduardo Corte-Real
Sent: Tuesday, 4 December 2012 4:27 AM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: the first Design maxim
Hello Lily, Terry and Jean
I did not mention Vasari but I should. Not only because he theorises disegno after almost one and half century of discussions in Italy on the subject since Ceninno Cennini's Libro del Arte, but also because He introduced a new sort of disegni that he calls scchizzi wich correspond to what English language designate as Sketches. Vasari was certainly one of Wotton's sources since his Vite were published in the 1550's with great success. But I think that the direct influences came from the Venetians Daniele Barbaro (Vitruvius translator) an obviously Andrea Palladio. Federico Zuccari (that visited England and even made a preparatory drawing for a portrait of Elizabeth I) published also a treatise on art in which he teorises about disegno as the sign of God - di (dio, god)) segno (sign) in the humans in the early 1600's.
Vasari and Zuccari are also important because they are linked respectively to the foundation of the Academies of Disegno in Florence and Rome.
As for designare, i found no evidence of the word in the latin version of vitruvius treatise, for instance. Also renaissane authors that write in Latin like Alberti do not use the word. A comon missconception is the one that di segno derives from designare. The prefix di is a neo latin novelty that indicates action as in di pinto or dipingere. So my guess is that di-segno has nothing to do with designare that originated design in the sense of designation.
The confusion of disegno and designare results from the way we pronounce the letters i and e in neolation and english languages which is the same sound. By the way, one of the only examples that the english E is pronounced in portuguese in the same way, is in the name Eduardo. I like very much to hear my name pronounced as A duardo by English speaking friends but the correct pronouciation is Ee duardo.
And finally Jean. Truth stands for the Ethical and Grace for the Aesthetical.
Best,
Eduardo
Enviado via iPad
Em 03/12/2012, às 16:17, Terence Love <[log in to unmask]> escreveu:
> Hi Eduardo,
> Wow - thanks for the history lesson. I'm wondering about earlier.
> As a design historian, wondering if you have anything on the original
> meaning of design from designare in Latin circa 100 b.c?
> Cheers,
> Terry
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
> related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Eduardo Corte-Real
> Sent: Monday, 3 December 2012 11:34 PM
> To: Dr Terence Love
> Subject: Re: the first Design maxim
>
> Hi Terry,
> "Boy, your words can't excuse the harm you've done to me. So now turn
> and /draw your sword/ " Romeu and Juliet, Act 3, scene 2, page 3.
> I agree partially with your first paragraph but not with the second.
> At the time Wotton wrote, the noun drawing was already established as
> a graphic representation of anything. However the word Design (related
> to the arts and
> sciences) was starting to be used in English language.
> Wotton's maxim refers to Painting (Picture) and reflects the Italian
> conflict between disegno (Tuscan) and colore (Venetian) that he tries
> to solve by praising both. I have no doubt that it was Wotton and his
> generation that imported the Italian concept of Disegno. and from
> then on, Design, from the early 1600's to the early 1800's, meant
> "drawing for fine arts - Architecture, Painting, Sculpture and Engraving later".
> At the same time the older uses of words that weren't spelled Design
> in the 1500's but become to be spelled as Design in 1700's as "things to be done"
> or "mark out" were used much more often.
> The other reason Wotton adopts disegno is because drawing has
> precisely and emphasis on gesture and not on meaning as disegno has.
> Another reason for this is that Wotton advocates Italian Classic architecture.
> The word drawing is simply not enough to give the intellectual and,
> why not, elegant relevance of disegno. In earlier years Richard
> Haydocke?s translation of Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo?s (1598) Treatise on
> Painting, drawing is always used to translate disegno except when
> disegno is used as "project". Wotton, ambassador in Venice notes
> therefore that in English there is no word that encompasses the same
> way as disegno both graphic representation and idea. That's why he uses it mentioning Elegance.
> I used this maxim, naturally to poke some of you. Not because of this
> intimate relation between drawing and design but because of Truth and Grace.
> Anybody interested in discuss Truth and Grace in contemporary design
> or for that matter in design research and Design PhD's?
> Best,
> Eduardo
>
>
> Em 03-12-2012 12:27, Terence Love escreveu:
>> Hi Eduardo,
>>
>> Isn't the origin of the word 'draw' from the physically-based idea
>> meaning 'to pull something toward one' rather that the activity of
>> sketching?Most meanings of the word going back to the Old English
>> and Old Norse mean to 'pull something towards you' ( as in draw a
>> sled or draw water) rather than 'create a picture' . The application
>> of the term 'draw' to sketching appears to be a rather later
>> possibly colloquial use outside their original meanings?.
>>
>> This suggests, the idea of 'pulling something' towards a solution (as
>> in
>> 'design') may also be independent of the idea of sketching and that
>> the terms 'design' and 'drawing' (in the sketching sense) are a
>> later colloquial application of those terms?
>>
>> I've no formal confirmation of it but apparently a similar
>> difference and sequence of changes of meaning is found in
>> Persian/Farsi and Arabic from around 1000 AD.
>>
>> Perhaps Ken has more details?
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Terry
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
>> related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of Eduardo Corte-Real
>> Sent: Monday, 3 December 2012 6:32 PM
>> To: Dr Terence Love
>> Subject: Re: the first Design maxim
>>
>> The first design maxim (using the word design) was (maybe) by Sir
>> Henry Wotton in the early 1600´s:
>>
>> /Therefore first (to beginne with Picture) we are to observe whether
>> it bee well *drawne*, (or as more elegant artisans tearme it) well
>> *Design'd; *Then whether be well Coloured, which bee the two general
>> Heads; and each one of the hath two principall Requisites; for in
>> well *Designing*, there must bee Truth and Grace, in well Colouring,
>> Force, and Affection; All other praises, are but consequences of these.
>>
>>
>> Remenber friends well drawne and..."Truth and Grace"
>> Eduardo/
>>
>> Wotton, Henry 1623, /The Elements of Architecture/, facsimile
>> edition, Farnborough, Hants. :Gregg International Publishers, 1969
>
>
> --
> Eduardo Côrte-Real
> Prof. Doctor
> IADE, Lisboa
>
>
>
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