Key aspects |
Design concepts |
Design methods |
Specific
General |
Goals of designs |
Specific
General |
In applied arts and engineering, a design is a set of variables and puts down the foundation for making objects or systems. Designers are in a position to define purpose and can be concerned with purpose and intended use. Design deals with problem-solving and creativity; it can be engaged in for problem-solving by scientific and mathematical principles. Professionally, designers are focused in one of the various design areas; but interdisciplinary design does exist with differing philosophies and approaches being applied to design.
Designers go though a process for developing and implementing a solution for products, structures, systems, and components. Design is art in a rigorous form with a clearly defined purpose. The approach to design has the designer's general philosophy as a guide for specific methods. Design is "applied art", an active effort to create both function and aesthetics.
Design process
From real-world things to virtual concepts, designers go thorough a process which make proposals, drawings, models, and descriptions of the object or system. Design production involves of compensating for routine problems and anticipates questions in the pre-planned processes. "
Design is the base of every form of creation. Design as a process which takes a general form, but is directed by the object being designed and the designer(s). The process is a common structure that can be applied to any kind of design. The design process is the management of explicit negotiable and non-negotiable limitations that will be encountered in pursuing an objective. The general steps of the process are:
- Identification of variables (also known as a "Design brief" or "Parti")
- Analysis and classification of variables
- Research and selection of variables
- Influence variables to adhere to non-negotiable variables
- Conceptualize and document solutions (Problem solving)
- Optimize variables which are negotiable variables
- Present and evaluate existing design
- Development and improvement of solution
- Test and and measure solution
- Implement solution into the environment
- Evaluate solution and and results
- Redesign, dropping back to a previous process step (if necessary)
All these steps fall into pre-production (1-7), and production (8-10), and post-production (11-12).
Having non-negotiable variables that are in conflict result in a design with no solution. Such non-negotiable variables must be revised. Poor designs occurs as a result of not accounting for the limitations.
Process design
Process design, not "design process", is the planning of routine steps of a process and are treated as a product.
Further reading
21st Century
- Ullman, David G. (2009) The Mechanical Design Process, Mc Graw Hill, 4th edition
- Williams, R. (2008). The non-designer's design book: Design and typographic principles for the visual novice. Berkeley, Calif: Peachpit.
- Holm, Ivar (2006). Ideas and beliefs in architecture and industrial design: How attitudes, orientations, and underlying assumptions shape the built environment.
- Stone, D. L., et. al. (2005). User interface design and evaluation. Morgan Kaufmann series in interactive technologies. Boston, Mass: Elsevier/Morgan Kaufmann.
- Gay, G., & Hembrooke, H. (2004). Activity-centered design: An ecological approach to designing smart tools and usable systems. Cambridge, Mass. [u.a.]: MIT Press.
- Frascara, Jorge [ed.] (2002). Design and the social sciences: making connections. CRC Press.
- Lazar, J. (2001). User-centered Web development. Boston: Jones and Bartlett.
20th Century
- Stoll, Henry W. (1999). Product design methods and practices. CRC Press.
- Johnson, R. R. (1998). User-centered technology: A rhetorical theory for computers and other mundane artifacts. SUNY series, Studies in scientific and technical communication. Albany: State University of New York Press.
- Noyes, J. M., & Baber, C. (1996). Designing systems. London: Springer.
- Alexander, C. (1979). A pattern language: Towns, buildings, construction. Centre for Environmental Structure series, v.2. New York: Oxford Univ.Press.
- Bishop, C. T. (1920). Structural drafting and the design of details. New York: John Wiley and Sons; [etc.].
- Varnum, W. H. (1916). Industrial arts design, A textbook of practical methods for students, teachers, and craftsmen. Chicago: Scott, Foresman and company.
- Ryan, W. T. (1912). Design of electrical machinery: A manual for the use, primarily, of students in electrical engineering courses. New York: Wiley.
- Hatton, R. G. (1902). Design; An exposition of the principles and practice of the making of patterns. London: Chapman and Hall, ld.
- Crane, W. (1902). The bases of design. London: G. Bell and Sons.
19th Century
External articles
- TED : Technology, Engineering, and Design - academic organization which holds annual, invitation-only conference devoted to "ideas worth spreading". (TED Twubs)
- TED Talks list - the best talks and performances
- TED Blog