As I’m reading through my aggregator and reading list every week, I find topics that make me think, “Wow! This needs to be shared.” I generally resist the impulse for a few days, waiting to see what the fallout is.
You see, good blog posts seem to inspire some sort of fallout, whether it’s positive or negative.
That happened with this posting of five design principles. I thought all five of them were fairly obvious. Technology servers humans. Experience is designed with the user in mind Design should never be obvious or overly complex.
Seems pretty straight forward, really. The standard things you cover the minute you set foot in any basic design class.
Sure enough, though, designers of various breeds were weighing in on it. Working Solo actually pointed me to the post to begin with with Leah’s post on how design is contextual. It’s true. Try taking an experience out of the context it was intended for, and you can almost guarantee yourself a baffled audience.
However, that same point was being contested by Mark Boulton, a designer who has pretty much seen it all (and tends to have an interesting take on it). In some ways, Boulton’s rant reminds me of the portfolio on display at the Art Institute downtown. The Industrial Design students have pictures of some of their work, along with an explanation of what the item is and where the student envisioned it being used. If not for the description, I’d have never guessed what half of the items were, but there was a definite creativity and usability to the items I could identify. It’s a blending work.
So…design is usable, but can be artistic. Design is contextual, but doesn’t have to be dry in its context. (I’m pretty sure that’s oversimplifying a complex question.)
