What is Design? A Brief Historical Overview
In what will doubtless be the first of several posts, DLB tries to hone in on what exactly we mean when we say "design".
The first item on my list of open questions from Monday is an absolute whopper: "What is design?"
The term design encompasses so many aspects of our culture that it seems nigh impossible to come up with a definition that is neither so general as to be meaningless nor so specific as to exclude too much. But we've got to try. Why, exactly? Because when we say design ethics we mean more than merely, say, graphic design ethics, but less than ethics in general.
Many famous designers have subscribed to very broad notions of design. Among the most broad, Paul Rand claimed that "Everything is design. Everything!" But of course, even if that were true, it's not very helpful.
Tagged with: Design, Design Council, Jackson Pollock, Paola Antonelli, Paul Rand, Saul Bass, Steve Jobs, Victor Papanek, What is Design.
