Just as I suspected

Design Thinking an article by Don Norman (via core77), the author of Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design.

What happened to ID? It seems to have been under identity crisis the last few years. In trying to explain and validate itself, it began jargon that further mystifies vs. clarifying what design is. By isolating components and parts and pieces, it served to explain what design is and at the same time kill it. The magic of design isn't an external thing, it's what that thing does, just as the magic of living thing, isn't the heart, or lungs or eyes. Those are all important and singularly amazing no doubt, however, the bigger point, the larger point, is in the living thing itself...it's freakin' alive! All those parts support it, but don't encapsulate it. All the components of design: idea, research, business, manufacturing, drawing, 3d models, renders, physical models, those things are each amazing, but what's really important, the BIG point of all that is in the "design" itself, the life it takes with and for people.

What is?

Words approximate,
experience IS.
It keeps pointing back to this for me.

Product Panic 09! by Bruce Sterling

"Everything about the way products are conceived, manufactured, and sold has been destabilized. I’d love to claim I’ve never seen anything like this, but since my wife is Yugoslavian, I can’t." - Bruce Sterling

The nature of all things is change.
Why should this be any different?
Difficult times make us reassess how we spend our time and energy.
Painful, but necessary.
Instead of freaking out,
we need to think and act more clearly.

Forget how to survive,
how do we Thrive?!!

All the talk of designers as problem solvers?
Designers solving for needs of society and culture?
Here's our Big chance.
I hope it proves we aren't just good talkers.

Design Progression...(brief digression)

As forever a student and practitioner of design, I've come to realize that there are certain progressions in understanding and utilizing form. There are levels of understanding of form, but primarily two principles: Form as derived by function (literal, metaphorical), Form as derived by intuition (sense, feeling)

In both cases process is critical.
In both cases the end result is "something".

Level 1: "What does the form do?"

Whereas both have their merits, I believe its necessary to first, understand why form is the way it is. Understand the logic, function and rational of form. When you understand this, they you can apply it to ANY application. The key point is understanding "what generates form". (An idea, process, material, system, necessity, environment?...what?)This is convergent mindset, "this form does this function(s)".

Level 2: "What can the form do?"

Instead of directing the form, this listens to the form. It allows for multiple solutions and stretches the capacity of the existing. In this case, the question is not what does the form do, but what can the form do? This looks at a form and allows it to become ANY application. This is divergent mindset, "this form can adapt to the function(s)".

Which one is right? Which is wrong?

Both are valid, both have strengths, both have weaknesses.
What's right or wrong? Well, that's based on the criteria you use judge it, which ironically, is independent of the object itself.

The order of understanding is irrelevant,
but what is important is their understanding.
One eventually leads to the other.

Craft of Design

When design is described or seen as just an arm of commerce, I wonder about the "craft" of design. The soul of design.

I wonder about the development of a designer... not in the sense of junior to senior to manager, but more in line with the sense of the designer developing their skills in the way an artist or craftsman or athlete does. Objects reflecting insights, subtleties that only result from absolute clarity of experience. I wonder about the mastery of design that occurs as a result of practice, practice and more practice. My degree says I am a master, but I'm not quite convinced.

I wonder.

Tree Chunk Assembly

I'm sanding and assembling Tree Chunks.
I love the variations of each one.
Each one is so distinct.
It's going to be sad selling these/letting them go.

Design Thinking is Not the Answer

the return of common sense

It gets tiresome when trendy terms pop up in the design realm. Particularly, design thinking, as if design thinking was any different than any other 'thinking'. It's like music, and I think Willie Nelson said it best. He was once asked, "What type of music do you like Willie?" He replied, "Well, there's only two kinds of music; good music and bad music, and I prefer the good."

Let's think of the quality of thinking vs. the type of thinking.
How about that?

Here goes...

So, ultimately, design is defined by your definition of it.
Its influence? Anything and everything.
Its expression? Just about, anything and everything.

So,
here are the things that are influencing me,
here are the things that I am expressing (designing/sketching/making...whatever)

Here goes...