the contemporary dilemma of creative design methodology: individual, object and their relation

Iniciação - Revista de Iniciação Científica, Tecnológica e Artística Edição Temática: Comunicação, Arquitetura e Design

Vol. 3 no 1 - janeiro de 2014, São Paulo: Centro Universitário Senac

ISSN 2179474 X

© 2014 todos os direitos reservados - reprodução total ou parcial permitida, desde que citada a fonte

portal de revistas científicas do Centro Universitário Senac: http://www.revistas.sp.senac.br e-mail: [email protected]

O dilema contemporâneo na metodologia de design criativo:

indivíduo, objecto e a sua relação

André Patrão Neves de Frias Martins | 2012/2013

Mestrando de Design Urbano Sustentável em Lunds Universitet (Lund, Suécia)

Mestrando de Filosofia em K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Bélgica)

[email protected]

Resumo

Por norma a discussão de um projecto de design centra-se no dissecar do objecto

apresentado, os seus méritos, falhas, potenciais, ideias. O que é, como é e porquê?

Quais as ideias que o sustentam? Que técnicas se utilizaram? Que referências serviram

de inspiração? Qual a ideologia implícita e quão válida será? As perguntas alvejam o

projecto em si e o processo de trabalho directo que o gerou – circunstancial, segundo

um programa pré-definido. O principal objectivo do designer – o what – e a sua

justificação legitimadora – o how – é posto em foco.

Mas este processo operativo, limitado ao fim imediato, é somente parte de um

sistema maior: o método. Esta componente instintiva e invisível do design é

simultaneamente a estrutura fundamental de toda a produção criativa por parte de um

indivíduo, e um elemento chave na construção do indivíduo em si não só enquanto

designer mas também enquanto pessoa – essa necessidade central e todavia

frequentemente desvalorizada. O estabelecer métodos de compreender e agir no Mundo

define também como ser nele. Logo, questionar método é questionar como praticar

design, e como ser no Mundo.

As técnicas específicas de um método não são, todavia, universais:

tradicionalmente, o desenho assume-se como instrumento principal utilizado, mas

recentemente os meios digitais têm desafiado tal domínio. A importância de método,

quer para o designer enquanto pessoa quer para o objecto de design produzido, exige

que se compreenda a técnica para além da superficial aceitação da diversidade como

virtude por si só. Especialmente num período em que o tradicional sistema reinante se

vê ameaçado como nunca pela revolução de uma nova era, há que questionar quão

vantajoso se provam, de facto, estes novos instrumentos digitais para o objecto criado,

e os efeitos secundários para o indivíduo que os cria.

Palavras-chave: Método, Desenho, Digital, Filosofia, Estética

Iniciação - Revista de Iniciação Científica, Tecnológica e Artística Edição Temática: Comunicação, Arquitetura e Design

Vol. 3 no 1 - janeiro de 2014, São Paulo: Centro Universitário Senac

ISSN 2179474 X

© 2014 todos os direitos reservados - reprodução total ou parcial permitida, desde que citada a fonte

portal de revistas científicas do Centro Universitário Senac: http://www.revistas.sp.senac.br e-mail: [email protected]

The contemporary dilemma of creative design methodology:

individual, object and their relation

André Patrão Neves de Frias Martins | 2012/2013

Master Student of the SUDes programme of Lunds Universitet (Lund, Sweden)

Master Student of the Philosophy programme at K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium)

[email protected]

Abstract

The discussion around Design Projects is usually carried out by dissecting the

product displayed, its merits, flaws, potentials, ideas. How does it look like and why?

What ideas were behind it? What techniques were used? Which references were

inspirational? What ideology is implicit and how valid is it? The questions target the

project itself and specific working process behind it – circumstantial to a pre-defined

program. It is the designer’s main goal of a “what”, and the meriting justification

provided by the “how”, that is placed under the spotlight.

But the operative process, focused on the immediate goal, is only part of a larger

system: method. This often instinctive and invisible component of design is both the

structure of all creative production by an individual and the key constructor of the

individual itself, not only as a designer but as the underrated yet central essence of a

person. Establishing a way of understanding and acting upon the World also defines how

to be in it, thus questioning method is questioning both how to design and how to be.

Specific techniques of a method’s practice are not necessarily universal however:

traditionally drawing has been the prime instrument used; but in recent years digital

systems have come up to defy such domain. The importance of method both to the

designer as a person as to the designed as an object pushes the issue of technique to be

considered beyond the loose acceptance of generic diversity as an absolute value in

itself. Especially in a period when traditional hand drawing strategies are being

unprecedentedly replaced by digital-era influenced computer designs, one must question

how advantageous are, indeed, these mainstream tendencies for the object produced,

and what side-effects are reserved for the designing individual.

Keywords: Method, Drawing, Digital, Philosophy, Aesthetics

Iniciação - Revista de Iniciação Científica, Tecnológica e Artística - Vol. 3 no 1 - janeiro de 2014 Edição Temática: Comunicação, Arquitetura e Design

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Why method?

The discussion of an Architectural or Urban Design project is usually carried out

by dissecting the product displayed, its merits, flaws, potentials, ideas. How does it look

like and why? What ideas were behind it? What techniques were used? Which references

were inspirational? What ideology is implicit and how valid is it? The questions target the

project itself and specific working process that formed it – circumstantial to the pre-

defined program. It is the designer’s ultimate goal of a “what”, and the meriting

justification provided by the “how”, that is placed under the spotlight.

But the operative process, focused on the immediate goal, is only part of a larger

system: method. This often instinctive and invisible component of design is both the

structure of all creative production by an individual and the key constructor of the

individual itself, not only as a designer but as the underrated yet central essence of a

person. Establishing a way of understanding and acting upon the World also defines how

to be in it, thus questioning method is questioning both how to design and how to be.

That itself justifies the imperious need, and promising benefits, of reflecting upon

method in creative design disciplines as Architecture and Urban Design.


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I) Creative method and the contemporary dilemma

Before confronting the complexities of method, one must first establish a

reference meaning for the word. Some answers can be suggested through aesthetics, on

how Art comes to be: Ancient definitions as presented by Plato, of Art being product of a

divine possession1; or, in more present terms, Kant’s credible account of the artistic

genius as “nature giving rule to art”2, outline a context under which to operate, but are

still too broad for the specific practical conclusions one searches for.

Intuitively it may be assed that method in Design implies a form of

understanding, and thus thinking Design implies thinking understanding. It would seem

wise to take up the origins of the debate‘s intensification, with XVI to XVIII century

Modern Philosopher-scientists. The dispute between Empiricism and Rationalism would

eventually find conciliation in Contemporary Philosophy, and that is apparently the

correct position to assume.

It is self-evident that in the process of production design engages both the

inevitable compromise towards the World it serves, and the self-reflexive necessity

implicit in any art-related practice. Thus, method may be defined as the structure of

intellectual and material creation, brought to be by an individual’s empiric experience

and internal conscious or unconscious reasoning. Such description alone displays how

crucial method is in the design practice. Consequently, the understanding of its

properties inherits the importance as well.

Method is constituted by an individual – who has a purpose –, an object – on

which the purpose is practiced -, and it is from the reciprocal relation between both that

method functions. Routine relations with certain realities, and consequent growing

understanding of them, encourage the maturation of guidelines, systems, criteria that

ascertain patterns of apparently successful thought and action towards them – and then

become references for thought and action towards similar or even unknown realities. So

it is from an individual’s desires, capacities and limitations towards an object that a

method is established on how to comprehend and act upon it. As a result this shapes

both the individual’s form of interaction with the World and the object’s purpose in that

same World.

Creative design related disciplines, such as Architecture and Urban Design, inherit

these anchoring notions of method, but their translation into the more tangible language

of a specific field brings up unique aspects as well. One is terminology, which attaches

meaningful words with substance to otherwise abstract and somewhat unreachable

concepts. For example, it becomes clear who the individual is and what it is doing to the

1 “The gift which you possess of peaking excellently about Homer is not an art, but, as I was just saying, an

inspiration […] In like manner the Muse first of all inspires men herself, and from these inspired persons a

chain of other persons suspended, who take the inspiration. For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose

their beautiful poems not by art, but because they are inspired and possessed.” – PLATO – Plato on poetry:

Ion, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1996; 533 to 534

2 “Genius is the inborn predisposition of the mind (ingenium) under which nature gives rule to art.” – KANT,

Immanuel – Critique of the Power of Judgment, Cambridge University Press, USA, 2000; §46, page 186


4

object when rewriting these terms as the designer designing with the purpose of creating

a final product, a designee. Though, it must be stressed, the designation of designer

should still transport with itself the notion of individual stated before, for the second is

only such by being the first as well.

Another singular aspect that must be mentioned, as it becomes structuring in the

creative methodology, is the relationship between designer and designee which has

historically been done predominantly through graphic representation. Establishing the

purpose of replicating or synthesizing the object implies recognizing its existence and the

effort of comprehending it, simultaneously generating criteria under which the individual

defines it3. The consequences of such terminology go much deeper than labeling though,

for method structure in itself must adapt to the individual as a designer and the object

as a designee. This means there is a specific “creative design methodology”, elaborated

from and for creative design.

Such seems to be fully described when distinguishing and interconnecting four

frequently shifting stages: “analysis”, when an object is studied, understood and

absorbed; “development”, when previously acquired knowledge is used in the production

of a new object4; “communication”, when the final idea of object is settled, explained;

and “validation”, when the representation of the object is actually materialized into

reality, into the real object. This last point opens space for the self-critic or poly-critic

action of analysis, turning this tendency into a constantly self-improving cycle.

However, the relation between designer and designee is not carried out in a single

way. In fact representation is practiced under many techniques that can be put under

two main categories: traditionally drawing has been the prime instrument used; but in

recent years digital techniques have come up to defy such domain.

The exposed importance of method both to the designer as a person and to the

designed as an object pushes the issue of technique choice to be considered beyond the

loose relativistic acceptance of subjective generic diversity as an absolute value in itself,

and to be judged as to its concrete merits and flaws, limitations and possibilities.

Especially in a period when traditional hand drawing strategies are being

unprecedentedly replaced by digital-era influenced computer designs, one must question

how advantageous are, indeed, these mainstream tendencies for the object produced,

and what side-effects are reserved for the designing individual.

3 Initially Plato considered Art’s imitative function as a flaw, for it would never truly replicate its object.

Aristotle, later on, points out the educational function of imitative Art. It is that line of thought that is followed

here: “Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this,

that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation.” – ARISTOTLE, Aristotle’s

Poetics, Northon, New York 1982; The imitative art of Poetry – 1448b

4 “But though our thought seems to possess this unbounded liberty, we shall find, upon a nearer examination,

that it is really confined within very narrow limits, and that all this creative power of the mind amounts to no

more than the faculty of compounding, transposing, augmenting, or diminishing the materials afforded us by

the senses and experience” HUME, David – Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hackett Publishing

Company, Indianapolis, 1977; Section II – on the origin of ideas, page 11


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II) The reigning ritual and the rising revolution

a) Drawing

Historically drawing has been the preferred technique used in creative design

related activities, and such inheritance has reached the present still in force. Though the

hand, pencil and paper are not – as they never were – sole participants in the creative

methodology, they do appear as a constant and structuring form of work and

communication. These merits, allied to the various drawing technique’s flexibility and

adaptability to new demands, contexts and complementary knowledge sources, have

kept drawing as a valid option to modern designers.

In fact the ancient character of this methodology also justifies why drawing is a

comparison model towards other techniques. The very notion of “creative design”

developed through the longest lasting tool it has had, drawing, and consequently its

development stages, roles, strategies and applications were influenced in that manner as

well. Creative design gained shape growing around drawing, and to understand the

former one must understand the latter.

The analysis stage is undoubtedly the most important step of any method,

regardless of the technique used. First, if one considers the Lockean notion of experience

as prime matter of our cognition5. Second and stepping forward from this, reinvoking the

Kantian account on human creativity stated in fact on the topic of aesthetics6, as well as

the perception of the World being fundamental for our understanding of it, and for our

internal construction – especially if one fully adopts the Phenomenological suggested

perspective supported. Metaphorically, and reasserting the Empiricist relevance on latter

Rationalist processes, analysis provides the raw material for proceeding stages: new

ideas are generated from the concepts gained here, and its future use is determined by

how such is done.

Drawing complies with this demand by being a rich instrument of observation and

dissection of reality. Successful representation of an existing object requires the

comprehension of its parts and their interaction as a whole. Therefore, even though the

analysis benefits of drawings are naturally enhanced by capacity and practice from the

5 “To this I answer, in one word, from experience. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it

ultimately derives itself. Our observation employed either, about external sensible objects, or about the

internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our

understandings with all the materials of thinking” LOCKE, John – An essay concerning Human Understanding,

Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975; Book II: of Ideas - Chapter I, page 104

6 Kant goes further than Locke, determining that we are able to go beyond mere association, though the

dependence on nature is still there: “The imagination (as a productive faculty of cognition) is very powerful in

creating another nature, as it were, out of the material actual nature gives it. […] Thus we feel our freedom

from the law of association (which attaches to the empirical employment of imagination) so that the material

supplied to us by nature in accordance with this law can be worked up into something different which

surpasses nature” KANT, Immanuel – Critique of the Power of Judgement . Cambridge University Press, USA,

2000; §49, page 192


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observer, the mere attempt of sketching an object – be in a perspective or a technical

drawing – implies a careful, repetitive and investigative look, evermore astute and

informative.

This technique becomes especially powerful due to the easiness with which it

relates to basic biological characteristics of the Human being. The pencil is a natural

extension of the arm, the gestures of drawing interact directly with the body, and thus

intellect and hand quickly and familiarly disclose themselves to each other as if made of

one substance 7 . “Observing and representing” becomes comparable to “hearing and

talking” as a standard form of dialogue, of comprehension and expression, towards the

observed object. In fact, the presence of drawing as far as the pre-historic ages may

even be seen as evidence of how natural such form of communication is, or as

justification for the present condition of drawing as an “acquired instinct”, or even as

both.

Whatever the case, the genuine character of drawing benefits the analysis

process greatly, for the anti-dualistic contact between the sensitive perception and the

intellect’s comprehension and imagination is more immediate, thus enriching it. More can

be understood quicker, and consequently more can be gained. Individual and object

become closer, and part of each other.

Advantages of a drawn analysis stage are then carried to the design

development. Stepping further in the previous considerations, and reminding what was

initially said, “new ideas” merely come from the combination of “old ideas” 8. This means

that the more information attained during the analysis stage, the more diverse, the more

precise, then the more resources available for the development stage. In this context

another peculiarity granted specifically by drawing becomes especially useful: the

language of object exploration and the one of object creation are the same. Both share

the same signs that, duly insisted upon, gain space as a structuring cognitive language

for practice and thought, very much like words do. Thus, drawing a project with the

same codes used to draw reality ensures a fast and far-reaching association of

memorized data - from conscious to (mainly) unconscious - hence multiplying the design

possibilities and, consequently, increasing the chances of a better and stronger design.

Drawing optimizes the process of creative generation by directly interconnecting its two

fundamental components: recollection and association.

The benefits ripped from such an extraordinary overreaching cognitive system

becomes abundant internally and externally as written and spoken language itself: from

the practical consequence for the designed object, that inherits a genuine Human

component delivered from the individual’s very essence; to the transcending matters of

7 Through a curious perspective, one considers the reunification of Cartesian dualism (thus the consideration of

a res cogitas and res extensa that are then reunited), drawing almost seems to partake as a component of the

bodily res extensa, and not as separate component.

8 “And even in our wildest and most wandering reveries, nay in our very dreams, we shall find, if we reflect,

that the imagination ran not altogether at adventures, but that there was still a connection upheld among the

different ideas, which succeed each other.” HUME, David – Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Hackett

Publishing Company, Indianapolis, 1977; Section III – on the association of ideas, page 14 paragraph 1


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the individual’s intimate self-construction, achieved through the personal interrogation

process that is design.

But the merits of drawing even go beyond the strict exterior representation of an

interior imagination. Within this methodological strategy there are infinite techniques for

its actual realization. Long living and continuously improving forms of sketching bestow

huge flexibility to this practice and allow it not only to not be a technical obstacle to

creativity – that would condition what may be made due to the how it can be made – but

even to be an auxiliary component of the idea association that forms the new. Adopting

historic forms of drawing implies receiving, in those techniques, the knowledge bestowed

on them by other people in the past. Aware or unaware of it, the designer practices what

others have learned, and becomes more than just himself.

Next is the value of drawing as a communication tool, when the individual

converts his internal language into a universally recognizable format. More important

than that, it is a point where the individual displays the product of his intimacy to the

frightening judgment of entities beyond it. Admittedly the effectiveness of such exposure

via drawing can be argued. Yes, there is worth on the imagination left open in a hand

drawing in accordance to a reasonable unpredictability of a project development; and

even of the information filter that may be used when drawing, outlining the main

defining characteristics of a project and abiding from distracting random elements. But

these strategies are very hardly – or very inconveniently – built upon universally

understood signs, at least not without demanding a detour from the purely productive

stream of method. Nonetheless, given design’s necessary commitment to the World, this

attempt towards a connection is an unavoidable step.

In the attempt of doing so there is even another danger, of the final drawing

becoming an object in itself and not the representation of one. The charm of producing a

drawing can easily mislead its designer into abiding from its descriptive realistic function

to create a beautiful image, and even if such practice is an innocent unconscious

reflection of intent, its deceptive consequences to the object representation exist.

At last the method reaches the moment of validation, when the design releases

itself from the imagined represented condition – in which it lived in the previous two

stages – to culminate into the physical form of its purpose, here forcibly universal. On

one hand this is an ending point, for the method’s application towards the production of

an object is fulfilled. On the other hand, in the broader context of a method’s evolution,

this is the restarting point of a cycle that never ends, for reassessment of the created

object implies the practice of yet again the familiar proceedings of observation,

interpretation, representation that is analysis. Thus a repetitive self-critiquing and self-

constructing feedback loop is established: the conclusions of validation become part of

the analysis grounding foundation for the future object development.

Unavoidably, as during the entire process, there is a deeper personal

consequence to this phenomenon. Accepting once again the notion that the relation

between individual and object transcends mere utilitarianism to become a constituting

part of the individual’s identity, then the assessed object is not only an object in itself

but the intimate product of an individual’s being. Thus judgment of the object is also a

self-critique to the person beyond the designer.


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b) Digital

The formidable information and communication technological revolution of recent

decades reshaped the World. Burdens became nearly effortless, dreams materialized into

realities, and the fantasies of the future need only time to come to be. In the personal

and professional sides of people’s lives, the digital era is welcomed to flourish for all the

instant benefits it provides.

Creative design was not an exception to the contagious tech fever, reacting in

the same enthusiastic way as any other subject to the sudden infinite possibilities

available. New techniques invaded the creative production as an unprecedented

avalanche with photography, video, image and video editing, vector works, digital and

better physical 3D models, renders, simulations, rapid precise calculations and so many

more major contributes.

But side-effects of the overwhelming digital era start to surface, in creative design

as well. Questioning arose with the unexpectedly unsatisfactory final physical product of

digitally-conceived objects due to their lack of human empathy. To what extent is it

beneficial and how far can it go until turning prejudicial? This also raised concerns as far

as how an object-focused design process instead of a human-focused one was affecting

who interacted with such items, designers and users alike. The recent rise of

Phenomenology in the creative scene played a major role in finding answers and

suggesting solutions.

An extraordinary conquest of the digital era in the analysis stage is the

simulations and calculations. These tools have been real myth-busters and a mine of

discoveries, granting precision and scientific understanding to otherwise generic guesses

and conveniently manipulated interpretations of the facts. A credible factual ground is

paved for development to kick off from.

Sadly this praise is isolated in a gloomy fog that even suggests the analysis stage

as the main flaw of a digital-structured creative methodology. And considering that this

is the basis of creative design methodology, as shown above, it may be argued that this

problem makes the method limp along the remaining steps.

There are in fact various digital techniques of analyzing pre-existing objects, of

which the most frequently used and representative one is photography. It seems to

contain far more and more accurate information than drawing, for its product is truly a

direct copy of the existing. Photography presents reality as it is, with all the visual

information that implies. But the analysis stage is not about copying reality, it is about

understanding it, and such can only be accomplished by taking apart its various

constituting components, they themselves being complex pieces. Thus the full

information provided in a picture ends up clogging the inquisitive view with excess

information, leaving the observer with nothing more than a distant general impression.

In its more amateurish use, photography frequently exemplifies a two-edged

sword issue of contemporary digital society: the near abolition of time in favor of the

immediate. Brief seconds are enough to register what the eye caught, and in short

minutes one may compile hundreds of photos. But the massive information contained in


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the camera remains there, and not in the human mind: on one hand, it overwhelms the

perceptive capacity; on the other, such rapidness jumps past a profound understanding

that only time allows. The shallow quantity-based productive context of contemporary

times becomes evident here as well then9. Curiously though, photography avoids such

danger when used under the same principles of drawing: careful, patient observation.

And under this regime it proves to be a useful and unique methodological tool.

Yet another significant disadvantage of digital methods relative to drawing

methods is the lack of physical involvement in the process. If the pencil ends up working

as integrated extension of the body, a partaking res extensa, the mouse and keyboard

and screen are far more of an obstacle. This issue goes beyond practice and familiarity

with used tools, it is a matter of natural gesture, of the fluent movement synchronized

with the body that digital techniques do not yet have. The relationship between

individual and object is no longer of intimate dialogue, but mediated by a middle-man

who works as a filter, delivering only partial information selected under its possibilities.

The construction of knowledge and of the individual itself becomes therefore limited, and

not expanded, by the tools used.

The general ground problems of the analysis stage inevitably haunt the

development stage as well. Reminding that the new is generated from associating pre-

existing knowledge, the shallowness of acquired knowledge condemns new ideas born

from it to the same state of insufficiency. If the analysis is considered complete with an

unexplained impression, then development will limit itself to accomplishing the same

vagueness – and yet even in this being doomed to fail, for the hidden design forming

those very impressions was merely unconsciously felt and not necessarily understood.

Such scenario reduces the development stage to a form of tinkering with snapshots,

views and imagery in an uninformed and blindly tentative attempt of recreating the

representative form in which the objects were seen, and not the object itself. The matter

becomes one of “how it seems to be”, and not of “how it is”.

The lack of intimate connection between individual and object due to the constant

mediation of an intermediary is also relevant an issue, one that in fairness is a common

accusation towards digital life in general. The human invention that is the digital is a

simplified system that expands traits we are consciously aware in ways we consciously

understand. This means that, beyond the unquestionable advantages it gives, the digital

is also a reflex of how much is ignored about the complexity of an individual. It is an

expansion of what is known that does not include what is not known. One of the most

visible and direct consequences of this, in creative design as well, is a generated object

deprived of the enriching human contribution of the individual, and the individual unable

to fully absorb the unique contribution the object has to offer. A limited connection

between both that supplies each other with little.

After such harsh criticism, a bright note though. It is the communication stage of

the method that gains the most with digital techniques. Representing reality as a

9 “Many people do not understand the sorts of things they encounter! Nor do they recognize them <even>

after they had experience <of them> – though they themselves think <they recognized them> - HERACLITUS

– Fragments – University of Toronto Press, 1987, fragment 17


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genuine approach to reality, and not only the final stage of the development’s continuing

fantasies and unproven illusions, is a merit at this point, and one that can function to

some level as a “validation before the validation”. More than that, it also translates the

designer’s language into universally recognizable language, thus dialoguing with a

broader audience.

But there is also a shared danger with drawing – though here enhanced by the

lack of strong methodological structure of the previous stages. Communication can easily

become a mere pause in production for tinkering and view painting. Embellishing strokes

and decorations are placed as an extra that may communicate a general intention of

what is desired, but not more because it was never in the development stage to start

with.

At last, the validation stage is likely to be a faithful recreation of what was

projected: inanimate object-like condition, alienated lack of intimacy, incoherent

dialogue. The shape is materialized just as it was meant to, and the absence of genuine

content behind it becomes clear as well. The cyclical character of creative method, which

drives the validation stage onto analysis again, adds weight to the fault as well, for the

knowledge that was not gained initially is also inexistent in at this point. So, given the

apparently sound condition of the finished structure due to its correspondence with the

communication product, one is fooled to assume the method has worked. And in a way it

has, but only at the superficial level from which it can never break free.

The main hope of escaping such cycle can only come from extra-methodology

awareness, if the human essence of the individual beyond the mere designer becomes

conscious of the object’s lack of response to his personal needs. This would appeal to the

intimate content that was not satisfied during the previous method. But are the natural

cravings of the designer as an individual enough to be heard above the characteristic

alienation of digital techniques?


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III) Coexistence and aspirations for more

It has become clear that both drawing and digital forms of work have innumerous

benefits for the creative design methodology, both in a practical and personal level. In

fact, the continuous practice and evolution of such techniques proves some degree of

effectiveness and synchronization with the designer. But these reflections have also

alerted that not all techniques should have the same function and predominance in the

method.

The primacy of drawing as structuring design process seems evident, not just due

to the specific virtues of the technique in its parts, but especially for the globally

complete and interconnected process built from beginning to end. Drawing also has the

fantastic capacity of reaching beyond the circumstantial “designer and designee” relation

to the long lasting “individual and object” relation. This implies not only advantages for

the elaboration of the design practice, that feeds off the library of life experience and

being the individual has to offer, but also at level of designer as individual, bringing the

teachings of work into the very core of one’s identity.

But it must be noted that digital methods, from photography to three-dimensional

modeling and renderings, do surpass drawing in many regards (accuracy, effectiveness

and time consumption for example). Yet, perhaps due to the relatively recent evolution

of digital forms of practice versus the historic practice of sketching, these do not seem to

have the global coherence and inter-relationship between work stages and detailed

techniques that drawing has. This may also be the cause, or effect, or even both, of one

particularly major difference that clearly distinguishes drawn from digital: the distant

relation between individual and object.

The critical argument attained does not deny the significant advantages provided

today by digital processes – that should, in fact, be conciliated with a drawing core, to

provide more diversity, detail and quality and to the design while keeping a sound

structure -, nor does it even reject the possibility of valid digital-based design

methodologies in a near future. What is stressed, however, is that for the contemporary

conquests of the digital systems to surpass the object generated by drawing beyond the

quick mass production and appealing easiness of framed renderings, they must first

answer to the incredible creative cognitive process developed by tradition: a global

process, conscious of itself and in touch with the very intimate essence of the designer

and of the person that the designer is. The method of creative design that is the method

of drawing.


12

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the contemporary dilemma of creative design methodology: individual, object and their relation

Education