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November 07, 2006
The Process of Design
So a good friend of mine has asked a most very interesting question:
"What is your process? What do you consider important? What is all hype to you? What works well in school but just is not feasible in the real world?"
Of course I am referring to the Random Dude's humongous question about how people's design process work. Well, ask a silly question get a silly answer.
My process usually involves thinking in the beginning; and I mean real thought thumping brain power going into whatever it is I am doing. Let's say I am designing something new about the toilet. In Industrial Design we like to know our user. Many times, at least as a student, designers will go and observe their users. Usually, we just watch and observe how our user uses what they use. The handy-dandy ID research kit usually include a small notebook, a pen, a camera, and possibly even a tape recorder. But enough about that - lets get into the gritty work.
With observations done and in-home interviews complete, us ID'ers like to stew and contemplate about our findings. "Hmmm", we say. "What can I do that is new enough to be different but not different enough that it might scare people?" After a lot of synthesizing and deducing through obscene graphs, charts, personas, storyboards, and brainstorming we come to finally drawing. Drawing is the most basic and essential tool in the ID arsenal, excluding of course the mind blowing thinking we do. Sketch, sketch, sketch...toilet, toilet, toilet.
So it is usually about here where things get a little more serious. Okay, we've been sketching and even computer rendering like crazy now and it is time to review. "Good idea, bad idea, scary idea, what the hell is that, why do you work here, that's not so bad, l kinda like this but can you use this over here and put it on this here, great...yeah." It goes like this for a while where more and more serious designer aspects come into play. Aspects like materials, color, form detailing, other refinements, and possibly manufacturing processes.
Finally, you get to the "do it or loose it" round - by the way I just totally made that up, like right now. Anyhow there is a lot of either "hey that's cool, real nice, this is coming together" or "I liked what you had two weeks ago, I think you're loosing focus, what happened to your concept, get out of my face, try looking at other people's work for examples and inspiration." Okay. So you either make it with little tweaks here and there or you get squished down hard core and still have to come up with something.
Regardless of your work there is still more to be done. You have to get the most amount of details figured out before you present it to your teacher or boss. Basically you go back again to the drawing board to make some adjustments and modifications. At this point you might have just figured out what you are doing because until now you have probably been lost trying to figure out your own concept. This happens most of the time. You are close to Jedi ability if you have a solid concept and know exactly how to execute it from day one. What was the subject again...oh yeah, a toilet. At this time your new and totally awesome toilet is ready to be unveiled with all of its awesomeness.
Here we go! (3-minute sketches to illustrate weeks of hard work)
That's right, the same damn thing that is already out there but a different shade of white.
It's a toilet that utilizes a monkey (with glasses) that flushes it for you.
I can't even begin to figure out how to use it. (AKA, the over-designed / over-engineered thing I need to take a dump in).
Or, the all that was needed was a better ergonomic seat.
So out of the group of designers or students this is what ends up coming out. One is picked and then brought through the production phase of sourcing materials and manufacturers to make it at a competitive price. However, there might even be a chance that it does not go into production at all. Then it all starts back over again.
Trust me, if I told you this in any other way you might have fallen asleep out of boredom. Yes, ID is possibly the funnest thing to do, EVER, but there is certain dryness to it sometimes. Kinda like British humor and even that is hard to get through. There are a lot of nuances left out of my article because each project is very different. There are about a million more things that go on and happen that are project unique.
By the way, this is just one of many methods that Industrial Designers use to create objects. There is another methodology that eliminates the research and the designers just design. They don't need to think and cram over copious amounts of data to design a beautiful object. They instead rely on their great talent and sense of aesthetics to get the job done. This is totally acceptable. In my mind there is no 100% right way or wrong way. There is just a way. It is up to you to find your way and apply it so. It is that kind of thinking that makes a designer unique and creative. If we all fit into the same mold of thinking and practice of design we’d still be using the candlestick instead of a light bulb.
Posted by Will at 06:08 PM | Comments (5)