What is good Design? (journal entry 2)

O.K. so here are the summaries...

In "Ten Principals of Good Design," Dieter Rams lists and defines what he thinks is good design. In "3 Ways Good Design Makes You Happy," Don Norman explains 3 ways that design can make you happy (only its more like 4, because his slide show brings up 4 headings, but maybe they thought 4 was too large of a number for people to grasp, or maybe I missed something, whatever).

Oh, and the question for Don: "Do you think that one of the three (or four) ways design can make you happy takes president over the other?

But really, What is good design? I have been putting nearly 100% of my academic efforts to design related things for the past two years now, and I still don't really know what good design is. I am more confident now to voice an opinion about something that I think is bad design, but I still cant really answer that question. I try to go to all the Hallmark lectures, and a good number of those speakers have made statements about what they think is good design and no two are exactly alike, but they all sound good when I hear said, as part of a greater lecture. It seems to me that every designer out there has their own definition of what makes design good. More interestingly, they all try and define good design by breaking it into some sort of category. For example, "Ten Principals of Good Design" and "3 Ways Good Design Makes You Happy." That is weird. Its not like every scientist stresses over which category of stuff they can lump together to define science. That would be so painful! "Hmmm, well I think, that good science should be innovative, useful, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, down to the last detail, and worded as simply as possible." HOLY SHIT! Those are 9 of the 10 things good design is according to Rams! The only one not in the group: aesthetic. The funny thing is that all of those things are true of good science. Having an aesthetic quality is the only thing that separates the two, according to Rams. That's probably why Norman has recently (recent to 2003 that is) decided to devote his life to exploring what can be done with changing around aesthetics (it can make you happy!).

So is design science? No, science is not aesthetic. But is that the only difference? If it is, then why aren't these profound lists put to some sort of scientific or psychological test and organized so that we designers don't have to keep worrying about when its good to make something stand out. Or when its more important to make something so that people will buy it or make something so that people will enjoy the feel of it. Or so that we can just know if a good book cover is one that it captures the essence of the book with out making obvious references to focal points in the plot or if someone can see it from a mile away. Is aesthetics the only thing getting in the way? I think maybe. When you add aesthetics to the equation, nothing is fact anymore. But then again, it could be because we as designers expect different things from designs we are critiquing. For example, the first day of class, I told my small group that I thought "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" cover was ugly. Then Lauren said that it was voted one of the best of the year by Print magazine. They had chosen it because it was highly recognizable. Recognizably wasn't even in my criteria when I was evaluating the covers success, but I couldn't deny that book covers in general may profit from being recognizable.

Overall, I think that one thing that every designer agrees on is that design must work. As far as I am concerned, it can end there. good design works. That's it. Everything else is subject to opinion and once that happens nobody can really be right. The challenge though, I think, is evaluating the ways that design should work and which ways are more important than another.

That's my rant. No disrespect to either Rams or Norman intended. I also have my categories of words that I pompously think have relevance to each other.

word map

Writing for Ideas (journal 1)

As mentioned in Writing For Visual Thinkers, I have been instructed to use various brainstorming techniques ever since grade school. In my earlier years, I went head strong into projects, with a shoot first, ask questions later attitude. Because of this, I felt a bit of cognitive dissonance when instructed to approach something by writing a word list or brainstorm for a bit. However, as I did them more and more, I started to realize what an awesome spring board for later ideas these various forms of writing could be. Over the years, I have taken certain aspects of these techniques that I have found helpful and have started to understand the circumstances when I should use one method over another or a combination.

Last summer, I began to keep a little black sketch pad where I would write random thoughts. As I got used to it, I started to use it for other things like sketches, and brainstorming. Now, it has become my number one item. I take notes in it, write concept maps and wordlists, brainstorm, bring it to important meetings, sketch ideas, and when I'm feeling really creative, I'll sometimes write a poem. It has essentially become an idea safe. I think that I'm a fairly forgetful person, so having a place where I can quickly jot down things so I can remind myself later is awesome. I'm not creepy about it; I've seen prestigious artsy kids whip out a pad and pencil at a party and write some profound drunken scribble down a few times. But thats weird. Even though I sometimes get the urge to write down booze induced thoughts, I think it looks too stupid to be worth it. So I try and remember until I get home to do it. Usually they suck anyway.

I thought the reading made an interesting point about free writing. Except for a few times in English classes, I've never tried to actually do that to generate new ideas. I don't know that I will try it. For now it seems that I have found a pretty good system for solving problems. Except for this one with a logo I'm working on.. but I think doing some more sketches will be a better solvent for that one.

ok thats all

Chip Kidd's Advice

Of the three readings, which were all quite interesting and gave useful information when designing book covers, I found the Chip Kidd interview to be the most helpful. I'd like to bring up his answer to the last question first. When asked if one should judge a book by its cover, he replied, "Oh, go ahead." This was interesting to me because as a book jacket designer, he must have read a ton of books that he enjoyed that he thought had poor covers. However, it reveals something greater about his approach to designing a cover that he reveals earlier in the interview. He explains how he tries to 'subvert' a genre. When redesigning Minority Report he said, "I didn't want it to look like "science fiction," but it should still look appropriate for the subject matter." I'm not so sure what to think about this because as someone who thinks books can be judged by their covers, wouldn't he like someone who is looking for a science fiction novel be able to tell that Minority Report is a science fiction novel? Though he does also offer that covers should be interesting and appeal to the masses. So possibly, one trumps the other depending on the circumstances.

As for me, designing The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, this creates an interesting complex. The book is so popular, that it would sell no matter what the cover looks like. But do I take its popularity into consideration when designing the cover? Should I apply to the masses, or elude to the book's content?

Cover Inspiration

The Opposite House

The flipped image caught my eye right away. There is something inherently interesting about things that are upside down, they just beg the viewer to ask why things are reversed. Of course turning things upside down to catch an eye would be irresponsible design, but in this case I think it serves a lot of purposes. First of all it creates an area that calls attention to the text. Also, given the title of the book, one can make the assumption that the opposite house is not the house opposite the street, but maybe opposite from a characters norm. This implies a lot about the story. And like it or not, someone browsing through a book store will be more likely to read the summary on the back if the cover looks like it is a book they would enjoy. I looked up a summary and the book deals with immigration.

The Fall of the Towers

I like how clean the text is in this cover, but I disagree that it was the best choice for the project. Giving the design the benefit of the doubt, I am assuming that this book offers a factual account of the event. If so, I do like the clean type and the way it is organized, however there could be more done to draw my attention to the content. This could be as simple as using capital letters, or possibly separating the authors name from the title in some way. The image is strong, compositionally, and there is a nice void that is created by the text in place of the towers. Yet, if this book is a clean and factually based non emotional account of the fall of the towers, it would be interesting to see how a clean, vector based image representing the absence of the towers would have worked.

Lost Decades

I think that this cover is a good example of how type and image can work together to communicate important information about the book. In this case, the title is ambiguous to content. Because the content would be read in order to gain a specific set of knowledge, it is important for the title to easily suggest what information it would contain. The title is clearly legible, and works with the graphic to convey a larger understanding about the essence of the book. I agree that the Authors names and tag line should not be written in the same font as the title, but I think that right now they are a tad too distracting. This could be improved by simply adding a line to separate them from the center graphic. Also, I think that the Author's names are too close to 'LOST.' It looks like it is meant to be the same distance as the text at the bottom is from the white arrow, but I think that it is awkward because 'LOST' creates such a strong vertical that it seems cramped, whereas the arrow is just one point that happens to be the lowest.

Definitions

Sign - any object, action, event, pattern, etc., that conveys a meaning.

Index - something used or serving to point out. An indication (dark clouds are an index of rain).

Symbol - something used for or regarded as representing something else (the Jayhawk is a symbol of KU).

Packaging Design

PROTECTS



INTERPERETS


IDENTIFIES


BRANDS