This is my first blog in over two years. Since this is intended to be a design-centric site, I figure a good way to start off is to address what I think design is and why it is important.

When I was first in the Industrial Design program at Illinois, we were asked to define “design.” I don’t quite remember the definition I had at the time, but my teacher told us something along the lines that it was the aesthetic and functional considering and forming of mass-produced objects. That would be an object-centric outcome of design. There are others who say design is a process, typically including phases like identification of the problem, research, ideation, and refinement. But those don’t fully address the definition of design, the meaning of design. I think to discover what design is requires knowing why design is.


Why design? I will defer to Victor Papanek, a designer, author, and educator whom I greatly respect. To him, design is “a conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order” (Design for the Real World). To me, this is profoundly true and hits the heart of design; we are all seeking order and trying to make sense of this world, which includes the people and things in this world.