a s k e t c h

Speaking with students years ago, I described design as “the process of possibility”—the process of creating possibile experiences for the future, from present expectations based in the past. And this still seems to capture the essence of design today, although an even more personal relationship with it has steadily matured.

Understanding an issue and its core causes, openly imagining potential solutions, assessing the optimal option, and implementing and iterating with feedback to improve—all the basic elements that work ever more effectively as our own perspectives progress.

As a problem solving profession, then, how good to see organizations embrace the benefits of design, and to see it more broadly applied as it becomes more specialized. How promising that concepts familiar to designers for decades, like emotional design, effortless experience, and design thinking, are now commonplace—propagating timeless, creative principles with ever more perceptive care, as I believe is the ideal philosophy.

i n k l i n g s

Disposed toward design since high school, I had rather youthful incentives to pursue it as an occupation—combining artistic talent with a hobby of making things, and wanting to make things look cool. Thereafter, arriving at thoughtful design has been a life journey, embarking somewhat superficially and transforming into a conscientious quest thereafter.

Following a gap year gaining street smarts after high school, university then taught the creative process, production methods, and presentation skills, along with imparting Louis Sullivan’s pervasive dictum, “. . . form ever follows function.” With a focus on consumer products, the junior year dealt more with function while the senior year delved more into the refinement of form.

The latter was most intriguing, making mood boards of images to inspire alluring, visual motifs and metaphors that would appeal to an end user. How do you make a product romantic, or durable, or attract a particular persona?

The initial years of employment in California design consultancies were then stimulating as I delved into the professional realities of practices priorly only applied in academia. Working first at a small firm, designs of complementary, intersecting geometries were often fitting for basic, office and medical products to reach a generic user market. And consumer products commonly called for a more organic form language.

Then, at a larger firm, the clients and projects involved greater design detail informed by investigative, user research for products to portray the most persuasive messaging. While the efficacy of the consumer psychology, market findings was provocative for product development, it eventually exposed concerns with the intentions of mainstream capitalism.

Ultimately recognizing how I too, just as the consumers I studied, had become a rather materialistic byproduct—or buy product—of my societal surroundings, I began questioning my own values. And in the process, I became more alert to what and why I was designing, as well as to who I was designing for.

s e e k i n g

Responding to that calling, nearly two years of intercontinental travel would instill a poignant appreciation for timelessness, connectedness, and humbleness in stark contrast to the cultural norms I’d known—the ever impinging, advertising trinity of new, near, and now, revering self reliance, and enjoying abundance on demand.

As an American randomly roaming around Europe and the Near East, my interpretation of time itself changed exponentially—morphing from merely hundreds, to think in thousands of years—to better comprehend all that had come before. An ingrained sense of national isolation and pressures for personal independence shifted into an awareness of regional cooperation, related origins, and supportive, social dependencies. And presumptions of instant gratification gave way to gratitude, empathy, and respect for resilience amid scarcity.

As those insights pertained to design, I observed that eternal principles within our collective humanity appear in a constant flux of outward forms, individually and communally.

And each form then sets our expectations for experiences in the future, whether near term or far, and for better or for worse. As Charles Eames once noted, “Eventually everything connects—people, ideas, objects . . . the quality of the connections is the key . . .”

So, what quality of connections are we creating?

Answering that question, I began to favor that which evokes our subconscious similarities—our desires for control, belonging, and hope—to prosper larger populations for longer periods, rather than whatever promotes faster profitability for fewer people.

This precept recalls additional aphorisms of the 20th century pioneers of industrial design, who called for minimalism and dedication to a higher purpose. As attributed to the master of modern architecture, Mies van der Rohe, “Less is more.” and, “God is in the details.”

i n f i n i t e o u t l o o k

Thoughtful solutions of any kind then arise through an omni-contextual awareness that eclipses a user profile template or statistical demographic, to include precedents, places, and other people, while portraying deeper traits and respecting wider implications. Each phase of a design’s passage is an open field for invention.

A designer ideally understands a potential user through their own, personal participation in the usage scenario within its surrounding, micro and macro circumstances. This, in order to propose a user experience and its means that benefit the user and as many other people and particulars as possible.

For instance, environmentally mindful office furniture that is not only ergonomic, functional, and attractive for an office worker, but also considers the needs of the those on the production line, the transporters, the installers, the facility maintenance personnel, and the entire earth’s population today and tomorrow in the way it later meets its ultimate end.

Addressing the ease of the first and forever user experiences is of specific import, as a factor I’ve found through developing services and online interfaces and through becoming more reliant on them too.

Beyond simplicity and semantics for intuitive use, how else can an offering inform the user of how to use it and support its ongoing use or maintenance to prolong its usefulness?

Through intimate attention to the greater influences and human nuances of a product or service, that interaction becomes more than merely a sum of its parts, to effect people at an emotional level that leaves an endearing, heartfelt impression far surpassing utility alone.

Punctuating that point, another icon of architecture and design, Frank Lloyd Wright, believed that, “Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” Concurring wholeheartedly, I connote that assertion in teaching university design students, “Form + Function = Feeling”.

Associating this favorable feeling to the brand that provided it then leads to repeat patronage, referrals among friends, and praiseworthy feedback on social media which all propel an organization’s growth and—given the right intention—greater, worldwide wellbeing.