Hi Mike,
I invite you to reconsider. 
Five quick points:
1. I see any image(s) as part of a specification (they specify theses blocks/dots of this colour here and there etc).
2. If a design only *may* include original artwork, then clearly artwork isn't the defining attribute of a designer creating a design. 
3. I suggest we may be using the term designer inappropriately in some cases and some processes. This significantly changes how we see the different roles in communication design and the role of the prototype or art board. Carlos has pointed to this with the automation paradox and Don and Carlos in terms of distributed cognition. I wrote about this issue in 1996, I'll try to find the file or remember the details.
4. Artists and makers make prototypes (i.e one of something that could be copied). What makes a designer different from an artist or craft maker? Why is there any need to have a different term, i.e why use 'designer' rather than  artist or maker? Engineering designers are clear there is a need for a different term and it is for a task that goes beyond prototype making. 
5. How can you make the judgement that something is ethical or not? This is a subjective issue. Then ontologically, any statement based on it is no longer capable of unambiguously defining the ontological boundaries of the entity. I suggest that byy including an unspecified or incompletely specified  ethical criteria, Simon's statement about design is a statement not a definition.  I suggest in Simon's case, he is simply over extending and  trying to  dodge the subjectivity problem by using 'preferred' as a sort of moving target (as in the preferences change depending on the project). He and many others since (including me)  have failed to consider that that part of his definition, by including the indeterminate subjective element, compromises the validity of the whole definition.

A thought experiment, that tests your own inclusion of 'preferred outcomes'. The design of gas chambers in the second world war. Presumably these were designed for  what some saw as a preferred outcome. Many others regarded the outcome as very much not preferred.  Is the design for the technology  a design or not? Who decides? How does the definition of design that uses 'preferred outcome' ALWAYS result in the same answer as to whether something is a design or not or resulting from design activity or not?

Best wishes,
Terry

---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
[log in to unmask] 
--


-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Mike Zender
Sent: Friday, 19 September 2014 8:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Cc: Paul Mike Zender
Subject: Re: background vs design

Good comments Terry.

Responses one-by-one:

<SNIP>
(First)
One is that it distinguishes the fields and activities of Design from Art and from Craft production. Designers are the intermediaries that tell manufacturers what to produce. For example… <END SNIP>

Point taken, these were/are the specifications of communication design. BUT I argue most of the items in your list are trivial to the design activity (all except "specify the image (also create the image) which you say is incidental but I would say is the most significant part). Graphic designers don't just 'specify an image' (pick a stock photo), they MAKE images: take photos, make illustrations, design symbols and icons. No one hires a communication designer primarily to work out the production specifications you list above, in fact production specifications may be handled by a production manager not a designer! The designers' work is to create a model of a concept that achieves an intended end, and that model may include original 'artwork.' The specifications are trivial having to do with manufacture, as you note, but manufacture is about reproduction: reproducing the prototype! Design is the process of making the first of the type, not the processor writing the specifications that guide the reproduction of the type.

The past 20 years provide support for this perspective in that until the 1990's communication designed spent significant time preparing 'art boards' that were used solely as specifications for print production. Today that production work has largely disappeared, yet as many communication designers are employed as ever. I see this as evidence that the production of specifications was not the essence of design.

So, I am unconvinced by your argument and stand by prototype as a better word than specification.

Second
<SNIP>
Second, models and prototypes are only part of the design output… <END SNIP>

True, but specifications are only part of design output as well! I assert that specifications are a trivial part that simply guides manufacture, not the essential part. The essence of design activity is the prototype. Of course I/we are quibbling about words, but a prototype by definition embodies essentials - "proto-type" - that is the first that guides others. Surely 'the first that guides' is more essential than the others that follow. Specifications flow from the prototype, not the other way around. They are derivative, not source except from point of view of reproduction. Re-production is the essence of manufacture, not design. Design makes one to test. Manufacture makes many to implement.


Third
<SNIP>
Third, I suggest the inclusion of 'preferred state' is a serious problem in any definition of design… <END SNIP>

Point taken. Preferred is problem. The best that can be said about 'preferred' is that it is very broad. But value laden is a good thing to me, I'm not neutral, leading to your fourth point.

Fourth
<SNIP>
Fourth, why should any definition of design only refer to the ethically positive?… <END SNIP>

Design (I was/am speaking of discipline/profession here, which I said in my earlier post) should be limited ethically because we live and work in society, thus any profession/discipline functioning in society should be ethically positive.

In summary, on further reflection thanks to your response, I feel more strongly that "model" or "prototype" is a better word than "specification," and while I like having something about outcome in the definition of design AS A PROFESSION/DISCIPLINE, I admit design prototypes themselves are amoral - they just are. While I support having outcomes as part of the definition of design as Simon does, design like all other creative human activity is free to be good or bad. It's defining design as profession/discipline where I wish to include outcomes and ethics, ESPECIALLY since design is now overtly engaging in social change.

Best…


Mike Zender
University of Cincinnati
Editor, Visible Language


-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list  <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------