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PHD-DESIGN  September 2011

PHD-DESIGN September 2011

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Subject:

Re: differences in process between design and other creative disciplines.

From:

Terence Love <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:05:10 +0800

Content-Type:

text/plain

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Hi Mike,

Having had some time to  think about your question, six  thoughts came to
mind:

1.  As Fil, Derek and Chuck have pointed out, 'purpose' may be different.
The purpose of design activity is to produce a 'design', i.e, a set of
instructions for someone to make or do something. In some cases of
creativity, e.g. composition of  music,  the intention is to produce a
design (a score that others can play) and in this case, there is obvious
similarity and music composition might easily be regarded as a design
process. In other cases of creativity, such as painting,  the intention is
only to produce art.  The constraints and processes are different in many
ways. Illustration , e.g., might be in either camp. 

2.  You are testing a hypothesis, viz. 'the processes of design and creative
disciplines such as music are the same'. As a hypothesis, the primary test
is logical rather than  associative. For example, a hypothesis  is
straightforwardly  tested by contradiction. That is, if there are ANY design
processes that are not identical to processes used in other creative
disciplines such as music then the hypothesis is false. This marks an
interesting difference between the world of research and the worlds of
design/creative practice. In research, correct accurate reasoning about
causality and properties of theories is essential to proof. In
design/creative practices, associative thinking (weight of observation one
way or another)  is more common and useful to get insights as to how things
might pan out. Association is useful in design but not in proof in research
as it  doesn't provide the basis for proof of an hypothesis - proof requires
accurate reasoning and avoidance of fallacies.

3. Scale of generality and detail in description of design and creative
process is a central issue in relation to evidence for testing your
hypothesis. At the most general levels of definition of design process, it
is obvious that anything can be defined as anything else  and hence any
findings will be useless. For example, general definitions of both design
process and other creative processes can be defined in very general terms as
'a process by which we do stuff'  this includes all and anything in any
discipline and is neither  theoretically nor practically useful- a bit like
'close includes horsehoes and handgrenades'.  To be useful, the definitions
of design processes and other creative processes that are being compared
need to be as detailed as possible.  Much of the design literature is awful
in this respect. Most design process models are irrelevant to your
comparison because they are over-simplistic -  to the point where the
authors and users of them do not apply,  discuss or critique them in the way
they are described - simply the detail of their description is insufficient.
There are significant examples that are better, for example the VDI 2221
models of design process, aero-space and military design processes,
construction process design processes (e.g. to reduce rework), and software
design processes such as Agile and Scrum.  All of these define design
process in terms of the detail of how they are physically undertaken to the
point where it is possible to identify whether that design process has been
used or not, and to identify whether one design process is better than
another for a particular task or field. It is this level of detail that is
necessary to test your hypothesis

4. There are several possibilities for contradiction of the hypothesis.  One
path, the simplest,  is to identify whether there are some design processes
that are different in detail from any that are used in other creative
contexts. 

5. A second and perhaps more interesting refutation is to look at
*differences* between design processes as a means  of comparing equivalents
in other creative processes. This tests the hypothesis in terms of Ashby's
law of requisite variety.  For the hypothesis to hold, the  variety of both
sets of processes being compared must be the same and there must be a one-to
one conceptual mapping between items in both camps. An example: Dr Sooyung
Yang has recently developed and tested a new design process for high fashion
designers to be the primary design driver and manager of high fashion
knitwear design using computerised seamless knitwear design and
manufacturing technology (e.g. Wholegarment technology by Shima Seiki). The
new design process is radically different in workflow and power
relationships from the knitwear technology manufacturers design process and
reverses the  precedence of knitting machine technicians over knitwear
designers (as well as simplifying and optimising the design workflow and the
prototyping process). Radical structural and conceptual differences between
design processes for  the same task challenge the hypothesis if there do not
exist  models of process for the other creative disciplines have the same
variety in detail  and are structurally and conceptually identical.

6. Another possibility is the hypothesis could be resolved by redefining
design and creative activities to be the same activity. Concerns that
immediately springs from this is that it  might be occurring for example  as
a hidden agenda,  as researcher bias in reasoning, by accident, or as an
intentional yet undiscussed aspect of the proposal. Different, but similar,
processes of epistemological testing  would provide a basis for identifying
whether this  conflation of design activity and other creative activity were
justified.

Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

All the best,
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 McAuley,
Mike
Sent: Wednesday, 21 September 2011 7:31 AM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: Re: differences in process between design and other creative
disciplines.

Hi Terry,
At the moment my net is cast very wide and is all encompassing. To describe
where I am at in analogical terms, I have just begun sketching and
thumbnailing. I am essentially just scoping at the moment. So there is no
unease for me at this point in time to be excluding any areas considered to
be within the field of design. So, if the differences are in the details, I
may well find them. Perhaps, at a certain level I will be able to argue
that, for example, the process of writing a song is the same as visually
illustrating a text. Although, already I am discovering that, because I
can't 'see' musical ideas, my process is very kinaesthetic, the sounds have
to exist in reality, not in my head.

Mike

Dr. MIKE MCAULEY
SENIOR LECTURER, SUBJECT DIRECTOR,
ILLUSTRATION
Institute of Communication Design
College of Creative Arts
Massey University
Museum Building
Buckle Street
Wellington
http://creative.massey.ac.nz<http://creative.massey.ac.nz/>
________________________________

(04) 801 5799 ext 62461
(04 027 357 8799



















On Sep 21, 2011, at 11:22 AM, Terence Love wrote:

Hi Mike,
Are you also including engineering design and software design in your
'creative disciplines'?
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 McAuley,
Mike
Sent: Wednesday, 21 September 2011 6:45 AM
To: Dr Terence Love
Subject: differences in process between design and other creative
disciplines.

I would be interested to know if anyone is doing work which seeks to
establish differences in process between design and other creative
disciplines such as music. Obviously outcomes/artefacts are different, but
are the processes the same?  If they are indeed the same, then why do we
differentiate the design process from the creative process? Questions,
questions.This is my new, post PhD research direction and one which I seek
to partly pursue through my own creative practice as a musician and
illustrator. In my previous work I used Swann's (2002) design process model
to help describe the processes of my illustration students when they
interpreted written text into illustrations. Here is the link to the thesis
if anyone is interested.http://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/1046

Creative practice as research method is a new venture for me, but I do think
that having undergone the rigours of a traditional PhD I may now be in a
position to develop verifiable knowledge. If I don't, well I'm going to have
a ball writing songs and painting!
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

Mike

Dr. MIKE MCAULEY
SENIOR LECTURER, SUBJECT DIRECTOR,
ILLUSTRATION
Institute of Communication Design
College of Creative Arts
Massey University
Museum Building
Buckle Street
Wellington
http://creative.massey.ac.nz<http://creative.massey.ac.nz/>
________________________________

(04) 801 5799 ext 62461
(04 027 357 8799

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