The ANTIDESIGN

When someone says "look at the big picture" there is a visual ideal of taking a step back to see the larger image as a whole. With Design, it isn't so simple. The "big picture" can't be seen by stepping back, but instead by stepping inside, through, and past the original view. It is all about breaking down, analyzing, and asking questions.


My Des001 class started by putting an effort into defining design as a concept. The article by Kostas Terzidis, "The Etymology of Design: Pre-Socratic Perspective," (Design Issues Vol. 23, #4, Autumn, 2007: 69-78) delves into the roots of design and other words within it's schema. It is undeniable that design has many meanings, but in breaking down the etymology of the word itself, we can see that it's meanings are quite literally antithetical. By definition design is an approximation (of reality, ideas, life, emotion, etc.) Innovation, as a word pertaining specifically to design in most contexts, is often used synonymously with novelty, but through looking past it's perceived meaning and into the root of the word, we see that innovation is in fact only the appearance of novelty. This literally means innovation applies to things that are not new or original in any way, but are (for whatever reason and in whatever way) viewed as if new. In this way innovation, along with design oppose their own definitions in the way they are used. They can join 'irony', 'peruse', and 'bemused' on the island of consistently misunderstood words.

Putting terms like design and innovation into a box with a consistent definition is not what we aim for. The antithetical nature of design itself is reflected in it's lack of definition. Design isn't about 'hitting the nail on the head'; that isn't the goal of a designer. In Michael Bierut's posting entitled "Warning: May Contain Non-Design Content", that box around the term design is questioned, analyzed, and tentatively obliterated. There simply are no limits to what design can be. That isn't to say that there aren't things which are NOT design, however, I would say that there is potential for everything one sees, experiences, knows, or shares to be used within design.