Fillipo,

> Gunnar suggested it's flawed to think that design is distinct from
> other activities.  I don't think so.  Granite is only granite if there's 
>quartz in it.  Take away the quartz and it's not granite, but that 
>doesn't mean quartz isn't distinct in itself.  That's how I think about 
> design(ing).

If I seemed to suggest that, I apologize. What I intended to communicate is the reverse. It is not that design is not distinct from other activities. It is that design is not one thing. Like many words, we could come up with several definitions and were we to speak precisely we would label our uses. Each "design" is distinct from other activities but some "designs" are distinct from other "designs." Just as any discussion of art vs. not art is nonsense unless everyone agrees first which "art" is being discussed, asking for one simple definition of design will result in babble.

A definition so general that it will not draw fire for excluding the essence of one party or another's notion of design will be so general that it will make design appear all inclusive. Some people on this listserv believe that design is so basic that it encompasses nearly all human activities. Although I accept that as a path to one valid definition, I do not see it as a way to a useful primary definition. Words that mean everything come close to meaning nothing. 

There are valid definitions of design that focus on specific sorts of planning, others on visual arrangement, some that dwell on grand strategy, some on specfic tactical implementation, etc. Some reasonable definitions of design emphasize the aesthetic; others ignore and even distain it. Some require a physical object or at least a potential physical outcome; others make the object peripheral or even exclude the object from any real role in "design."

I hardly object to laying out the definitions. It is interesting to see them as overlapping clusters of meaning and/or interest. What I said was that a single simple, clear definition that would satisfy a diverse group (such as this list) is impossible.

> We shouldn't "impose" (per Gunnar) a definition of design,
> but having a "reference definition" as a touchstone to ground
> discussion - even though we might all admit it's 'wrong' in one
> way or another - would be, I think, very beneficial.

Again, I have no objection to definitions. Expectations of even a moderate degree of agreement over a single definition that is not so diffused as to be useless would seem to be chimerical. The best one could hope for from that is a turf war over who owns the word "design."  I suggest a multiculturalist approach with each definition being as exclusionary or inclusionary as is useful to a particular view and an openness toward the broadest range that each of can find to be acceptable in any way.

I do object to self-congratulatory generalities being called a definition. That strikes me as more unseemly than retreating into tautologies equivalent to "Art is what artists do; artists are people who do art." If design is "progress" or "innovation" or "good" then we don't have a field, we have an honorific. It is only if design can be mundane, unoriginal, and bad that one can claim it to be something other than a buzz word.

Gunnar
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