When Does Design Stop Being Design?

Andrew Maher

Design is often cited as living on a scale. If this scale is

not understood then the nature of our industry can not

be understood and we may lose focus of what exactly

it is we are doing being designers, put little weight or

overemphasize the importance of our industry. This is what

compelled the drawing you see before you to exist, a need

to identify just where it is we sit in a world of continuing

artistic endeavours, contrasted against the technologically

innovative age we live in.

Technology/Engineering Art/Creativity

It could be said that design walks a tight rope somewhere

between the conceptual world of art and the rigid discipline

of engineers. Designers live the role of fusing the two

together with a rigid focus on accessibility; connection

to a user is the end goal of the designer and the very

reason for our industry’s existence. Answers are formed

when we look to the inception of our industry – the

Deutscher Werkbund. The goal of the Werkbund was to

fuse art and industry to create excellence of products. Ever

since designers have seemed to walk this identity crisis of

whether we are artists, engineers or designers.

The Design Scale

Design

DesignEngineering

Engineering

Art

Art

Answering this question with saying that we did all three

would be a good way to satisfy all arguments and is

perhaps the perfect answer. But by saying this we bring

degradation to the disciplines of engineering and art, as

we can’t be revolutionaries in all thre fields (if we are

then perhaps we are worthy of the title of genius, though

I know a lot of stupid designers who don’t deserve such

a title). Instead we choose to live somewhere in between

these two disciplines, design it seems can be accessible

engineering, but also accessible art.

Expanding on this my scale can also act as a map. We

could say that Modernism existed within the space that

is closer to the extent of engineering, post-modernism

existed in the space closer to the artistic and philosophical

end of the graph. Of course these are simplified views, but

the scale is not inherently locked into asking big questions.

Looking at Modernism more closely we could say that

designers such as Paul Rand existed in more of the central

realm, adverse to the more extreme philosophies, and

that designers such as Corbusier occupied the engineering

space more greatly, as he wanted to bring the more

glorious aspects of engineering to the masses.

Design

Engineering

Engineering

Art

Art

Modern

ism

Post-

Modern

ism

The extent of things within which we call design, much

like Hawkings universe is ever expanding. As we find

more ways to incorporate newer technologies into the

hands of the user then so to must this graph change – in

other words the green bit will expand, just as the blue of

engineering and orange of art and philosophy. If this is the

case we can define the nature of a design ‘epiphany’ as

expanding design into either one of these territories.

If we look to the post-modern movement we can see a

shift towards the artistic direction. 1960s pop-art dictated

much of MTVs style and designers often called on greats

such as Andy Warhol to assist in designing aspects of

brand ephemera. We can look at many case studies where

art and design have merged, typography offers one of

the best pointers – it is heavily influential on what our

graphics look like and in turn influenced by the art of

the day (deco fonts such as Ehmke, Modern fonts such

as Helvetica and Neville Brodys post-modern fonts, it is

within their theses that lie some of the answers to this

essay). These pseudo design artists pushed the realms of

what design was and redefined the way we thought about

our roles, pushing out the right hand side of that green

section of my graph in a very different way to what pushes

the engineering side of design.

When we think about the rational end of what we

do and the way in which it is extended we can see a

contradiction. Stated before is that design lies within

what the client needs, but another facet is added when

we think about engineering, which presumably also suits

the needs of a client. Often though engineered devices

are far too complex for the needs of the layman, training

and education are often needed to operate the complex

contraptions of an engineer. Design innovation and the

development of our field within this area lies within the

breaking down of technical barriers and minimizing the

cognitive workload required when operating these devices.

It is within this area that modern credo’s come into play-

less is more and less but better are the overwhelming

instructions to a designer that operates within this field.

Just as Hawkings big bang theory involves the universe in

a constant state of growth, so too are art and engineering.

Things that were created with the intention of being used

were referred to as engineering, If they were intended to

be looked at they were called art. The Deutscher Werkbund

was an initiative that fused these two together and the

Bauhaus was born. At this point art and engineering were

linked strongly, goods needed to be produced for mass

production that were not mere imitations of the arts

and crafts movement. At the time there were disciplines

of art that better leant themselves to the restrictions

of the machine better than anything else - De Stijl,

Expressionism, Abstraction, Futurism etc. It was the fusion

of users needs, mass production and art that design was

born, that legacy lives on today and it seems all to easy to

forget.

As a closing note and perhaps most importantly, remember

that design is not a soulless pursuit. Vignelli designs to

rid the world of vulgarity, Carson designs to represent

minorities, Fletcher to answer questions, Rand created to

solve business problems and surprise us with clever games.

All of these things lead me to the conclusion that design is

simply to make the world an easier place to live; and this is

why we should design.