For reflection one we were to read chapters one through six in John Haskett's "Design: A Very Short Introduction." Here is a little bit of what I took from the first couple chapters.
The book starts out with explaining what exactly design is. One of my favorite quotes from the first chapter is “The history of design, however, can be described more appropriately as a process of layering, in which new developments are added over time to what already exists.” I love this quote because design never forgets one aspect of itself; it just continuously builds upon those fundamental ideas and makes itself better. Design is so interesting because it is like building blocks, the more you learn about other designers and methods the more you build your own design abilities.
The book starts out with explaining what exactly design is. One of my favorite quotes from the first chapter is “The history of design, however, can be described more appropriately as a process of layering, in which new developments are added over time to what already exists.” I love this quote because design never forgets one aspect of itself; it just continuously builds upon those fundamental ideas and makes itself better. Design is so interesting because it is like building blocks, the more you learn about other designers and methods the more you build your own design abilities.
The book mentions that it’s hard to determine exactly when people started to use design to change their surrounding environments. As far as tools are concerned, they were designed early on to be an extension of the human limbs to increase efficiency. The example of using clam shells to dig or scoop water, something you could do with your hands with less efficiency, was given. I find it to be pretty cool that what seems as simple as using a clam shell to collect water helped evolve what is now a huge design industry.
In chapter three the book begins to talk about the importance of utility and significance. One quote I found interesting was, “human life is frequently inspired and motivated by dreams and aspirations rather than just practicality.” I really responded to this quote because it reminded me of the creativity of humans. It’s almost mind boggling to think about the ability some people have to create such beautiful things. I think the quote is also true in that sometimes designers don’t always base their designs off of practicality and I think that in some situations that’s alright.
Chapter five talks about communication and how it is used throughout design. I don’t think I realized to what extent non-commercial organizations had a need for design regarding communication. Such as churches, charitable organizations, news programs, and museums. For example, museums need well-designed directional signs to let visitors know exactly where to go and news programs need everything from logos to on screen designs. It’s really amazing how much design is integrated into our everyday lives and sometimes we don’t even notice it. Later in the chapter the use of communication design in political campaigns is discussed. “Even political campaigns for the presidency or other major offices are run as advertising campaigns.” Advertising has become so popular that political campaigns are run by it. No longer does it only matter the actions of political people, but also how they brand/advertise themselves. I don’t exactly think this is what we should be basing our decision off of, but this is a huge part of society today.
Lastly, I found the evolution of office spaces to be a very interesting section of chapter six, where environment was the topic. At first, employers had offices designed for employees to have little distractions and to have a strict hierarchy between the levels of employees. Then offices moved towards being designed in a way that employees were encouraged to interact with each other and work together to do their jobs better. I personally think I would function better as an employee if I had other employees to bounce my ideas off of. I think a lot of people are more creative when hearing others’ ideas and building off and adding their own ideas to them.
Overall, I found the reading to be very interesting and easy to understand. I definitely learned a lot from the first six chapters that I was unaware of before. I think having a general knowledge of design’s background will come in handy throughout this class.
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