METAPHOR QUOTIENT

Decrease the metaphor quotient in your drawings.

The more directly your drawings relate to the problem you are working to solve, the less of a metaphor they are, and the lower your metaphor quotient.

A vast majority of the drawings that designers draw have a very high metaphor rating. So many design drawings that we see published do not apply to the problem that is being solved. That’s why we call them eye candy, or another similar derogatory term.

Bachelard in The Poetics of Space speaks of

“images used as proof, images that are witnesses of a reasoning imagination.” 1.

How about that, a “reasoning imagination.” We want the drawings that we make to serve as proof of our creative reasoning minds. By reducing the metaphor quotient, the greater factual content your drawings will contain. The higher the transparency, the lower the metaphor quotient.

And indeed, then anyone looking at your drawings will say, I value this because it looks like it was drawn from a reasoning imagination. And isn’t this all we really want in the first place?

The drawing above is from a current project of ours that is under construction.  I believe that because of the transparency, the metaphor quotient is low.  I also believe, for example, that my drawing of the Ando addition in Williamstown has a low metaphor quotient.

1. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press: Boston. 1958. P 129.