Andrew Fox

I’ve recently felt the need to reflect. What is the best way to actually go about designing?

A recent visit to New Designers 08 got me thinking. Here you find a load of new graduates in design from product design, graphics, furniture, architecture, interactive media etc. Some have great innovative design work, whilst others are not worth the paper (or screen) they’re presented on. I have no doubt the good designers will go on to do well in their chosen design career direction. They’ve understood that in order for a design to be a “good design” they have to get to the root of the problem and ensure that there is a (potential) market ready to accept it and that it is also usable.

All this new design triggered a memory in my mind about when I was a wee nipper in the world of design myself and trying to understand it all, just like them. Okay, I’m not saying I know everything now! But when you’ve been working professionally in design, one finds themselves specialising in an area and before you know it, you’ve got yourself into “the groove” and perhaps you don’t have to think about your essential objectives constantly in the same way you do when you are a new designer. In web and graphic design, all too often we produce designs based on our previous knowledge and current (past) trends and each one becomes a template. Whilst these outcomes are probably still great and the client gets what they want, would things be different if we approached them in a different way? …by getting right to the heart of the matter by pulling it apart and analysing every angle? Of course, there are more constraints and consistencies in web and graphic design but that’s not to say we can’t try by applying ourselves!

When I was at Uni at the same time as the guys from New Designers 08 (Those that know me personally will know that I am originally from a product design background), I did a study into my favourite designer - Giorgetto Giugiaro. The study is about how this great Italian designer has become so successful and gone on to be probably the most prolific automotive designer of all time. Giugiaro didn’t just design cars, he designed cameras, cathedral organs, pasta… the list goes on and it’s this multi design discipline success that must be admired. It’s the way everything is studied in great depth before arriving at the perfect usable, saleable solution. Its not just cars and products that this can be applied to, but graphics, web, advertising – anything that is designed and has an end user!

I guess I was of the same mindset back then …either that, or I am just as confused now and still looking for answers! Since my study, I have always admired and taken direction from the words of Giugiaro…

“The high cost of investment for launching a product on a large scale… forces the designer to make every effort to provide his customer with precise and complete answers. The designer must unite creative functions with the technological ones - extemporize as a technician in order to dialogue with the technicians - in order to defend and assert the quality of his intuitions.” Giorgetto Giugiaro

The study explores Giugiaro’s history; his artistic background but also how he learnt from his engineer colleagues. It seems his background in art and engineering (similar to that of many web designers?) has given him the ability to design everything from super sexy sports cars such as the 1966 Maserati Ghibli (or more recently the Alfa Romeo Brera) but also utilitarian cars like the original Fiat Panda. The significance of this is that his designs perfectly satisfy their briefs. The Fiat Panda for example, could have been designed with more attractive styling as it was not an inability to design good looking cars that was holding him back, nor was it limitations in technology. It is nothing more, nothing less; just exactly what he believed was required by the user and the market and this was the reason for his huge success.

My study wasn’t specifically web or graphic related but I have always been a believer that a design approach can be the same across any discipline!? I’ve always been able to relate to it anyway.

So if you fancy a read and haven’t already fallen asleep even before I’ve had the chance to mutter the word “dissertation”, its here to download for your reading pleasure.

Don’t forget I was knee high to a grasshopper when I wrote this and probably used a lot of really long words I didn’t know the meaning of!

If anyone reads it, I’ll welcome your comments.

Download…

* Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/27620885@N02/2711223359/