Design & Relationships

Filed Under: Essays, Society, Literature, Journal, Design.

Have you ever experienced a moment in which you began to question everything around you - a moment when the pressures to “succeed” at a trade (under the ruse of objectivity) suddenly felt useless?

Are these points of utter confusion and defeat not moments for which to live? I simply want to stop what I have driven myself to do and sit down (on a street curb perhaps?) to ponder about the direction I am taking myself. Of course, what is life without those moments to ponder?

Is design about identity? What is identity? These questions have consumed my thoughts. In the short write-up on my new granted services program, I point out identity as a very important part of my services. However, who am I to give another person, let alone an organization, an identity? How could I ever understand such a thing? Robert Frost’s poem, “Design” challenges this idea with great eloquence.

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth-
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth-
A snow-drop spider, a flower like froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite

What had the flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?-
If design govern in a thing so small.

In essence, Frost characterizes design as a transcendent - almost spiritual - force. What if design was a governing force not only found through human actions, but in nature? What if design was something wider than the corporate obsession with trademarks? What if design spoke to you, but you never knew?

A few years back, I used to characterize design as our attempt at mimicking what we find in nature. As explained in Frost’s poem, I began to see design everywhere in nature - and it was so psychicacly beautiful. The dew drop; the tangle of roots; the crumpled old face of a granite outcropping all seemed like supernatural feats. How could I - anyone for that matter - accomplish such feats of design with my limited perceptions and crude hands?

But look at those hands, are they not supernatural feats themselves?

At the time, my challenge was to define a relationship between humanity and nature. The characterization of design as a supernatural force was pitted against design as an anthropocentric mimicry. I was alienating humanity from nature and I needed to look closer. Joseph Strauss, the chief engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge, believed that his creation successfully demonstrated humanity’s control over nature. Can a towering structure like the golden gate really survive the Earth’s timeless fluidity? The tallest mountains rise and fall over the seas of magma that control tectonic movements.

A feat of engineering like the Golden Gate still stands because a relationship was formed between the winds, sea and structure. Additionally, the need to form a relationship shows that humanity is a part of nature, gliding over the landscape on its own entelechial path. We are distinct with our own distinct needs, but we are also a creation to behold.

Why do we design?

Why do we sing when we can simply speak our minds? Why do we attempt to describe our lives through poetry when we can simply document? Design is a force that gives our lives meaning. Design is integral to communication - that which binds us together as one.

Unfortunately, we face many collective challenges, and now is more important of a time as any to understand that design is sorely needed for doing good in the world. Indeed, design has political dimensions. At this dimension, design becomes a focal point in forming relationships. Who does the design speak to? What elements of peoples’ lives does it represent? Why are those values important? Who benefits from the ideas encapsulated in the design? Who benefits from the functionality of the design?

Under the dominant, reductionist paradigm design is becoming an end in itself. Sadly, many people are losing touch with the extent to which design permeates their lives. In my own life, I have shied away from studying only design because I want to understand how to use it. If design might be a binding force, what elements of our lives and who in our lives will we bind together?

At this point, I do not want to give you an explicit direction. I only want to ask you a question. Who and what do you want to reach out to? What drives the dialectic of your passions?

Published: 5 years ago