A conversation sprung up on Twitter a couple of weeks ago on the topic of what is design. The conversation involved three other bloggers and those blogs are Dog Walk Blog , Modenus , Concrete Detail and me. We chose today to answer the question on our respective home turfs. Follow those links, I know I will. I'm curious to see what the other three came with as a definition of design.
So this leaves me. What is design precisely? Well, I don't know that I have a precise definition for it other than that involves bringing order from chaos. Though this order isn't always wrought by human hands, the perception of design is exclusively human. Obviously. I felt compelled to say that because my working definition of design hinges on it.
Here are some examples of a now not unusual design detail, a spiral.
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| Andromeda thru Flickr |
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| thru Flickr |
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| thru Flickr |
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| thru Flickr |
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| The Vatican Museum thru Flickr |
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| office tower in Nagoya |
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| thru Flickr |
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| sculpture by way of Peter Coffin at the Saatchi Gallery |
Human brains are pattern recognition machines, I say it all the time. We evolved brains that are hard wired to find patterns, whether patterns exist or not. So for me, design is the art of manipulating patterns. There are all manner of rules and regulations that determine what good design is but all good design comes from an awareness of those rules. Good design follows the rules but just as importantly, good design can dispense with the rules all together. What's important is the awareness, not necessarily an adherence.
So to reply the query, layout is enforcing order on chaos. What do you watched? What's layout to you?