Fast-Forward at DesignInquiry 2012: Process and Product, by Bobby Campbell:
"And I wanna know
The same thing
We all wanna know
How's it gonna end?"
- Tom Waits
A designer is constantly enticed to mentally "fast-forward" to that magical moment when the design emerges wholly formed as an object to be worshipped by all. The designer envisions this holy relic, the perfect design, as granting her the respect of her peers, at last. The design client is in awe, or at least subdued, by the rightness of this image the designer has produced. An adoring public understands this pristine visual, the radiant pinnacle of communicative imagery, deeply and implicitly.
Writing it out this way reveals that the quest for a final, perfect "object" of design is highly illusory. Our mainstream culture, however, is driven by consumerism, media, politics, instant access and instant gratification, phenomenon that promote the product over the process. This is practically a given. What it means for the designer is a nagging temptation to focus on the outcome rather than the inputs.
Over the course of my design career, I have learned and continued to re-learn, that the core of what I do is found in the pleasure I take in the slow and steady pace of practicing my craft. At the micro level, I enjoy the sketching and thinking that occurs at the outset of a new design project. I value the spontaneous leaps that happen as a design challenge begins to reveal a solution. I look forward to meticulously honing the imagery into forms that best reflect my design thinking. At the macro level, I have learned to reflect on and appreciate the twists and turns introduced into a project because the client is learning alongside me. Since I have become a design teacher, it has become much easier to put myself in the client's position, to empathize with their fears and frustrations with the creative process and to try to address those concerns honestly, directly and patiently. The client is not my student, but he or she is a person with legitimate reactions to the visual work we are doing together.
(more...)
"And I wanna know
The same thing
We all wanna know
How's it gonna end?"
- Tom Waits
A designer is constantly enticed to mentally "fast-forward" to that magical moment when the design emerges wholly formed as an object to be worshipped by all. The designer envisions this holy relic, the perfect design, as granting her the respect of her peers, at last. The design client is in awe, or at least subdued, by the rightness of this image the designer has produced. An adoring public understands this pristine visual, the radiant pinnacle of communicative imagery, deeply and implicitly.
Writing it out this way reveals that the quest for a final, perfect "object" of design is highly illusory. Our mainstream culture, however, is driven by consumerism, media, politics, instant access and instant gratification, phenomenon that promote the product over the process. This is practically a given. What it means for the designer is a nagging temptation to focus on the outcome rather than the inputs.
Over the course of my design career, I have learned and continued to re-learn, that the core of what I do is found in the pleasure I take in the slow and steady pace of practicing my craft. At the micro level, I enjoy the sketching and thinking that occurs at the outset of a new design project. I value the spontaneous leaps that happen as a design challenge begins to reveal a solution. I look forward to meticulously honing the imagery into forms that best reflect my design thinking. At the macro level, I have learned to reflect on and appreciate the twists and turns introduced into a project because the client is learning alongside me. Since I have become a design teacher, it has become much easier to put myself in the client's position, to empathize with their fears and frustrations with the creative process and to try to address those concerns honestly, directly and patiently. The client is not my student, but he or she is a person with legitimate reactions to the visual work we are doing together.
(more...)
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