THE END OF DESIGN

You have an idea.  You draw the idea on your paper.  Then you describe the idea in words.  That description, using words, makes your concept static.

Think about it.  There you are, happily drawing away.  You might be thinking on your paper while you solve a design problem.  Or you might be developing new forms by projecting off of something that interests you.  So much is possible.  And you haven’t said anything yet.

Now, imagine that you stop drawing.  And now you have to describe, or explain your fantastic concepts to someone else.  So you assemble strings of words that try to describe your idea.  When you assemble these strings of words, the design is over.

Once you apply the strings of words, the fluidity of your design on your paper has been replaced by the stability of words.  The strings of words essentially casts your design.  The creativity is done.

This happens to us every day.  We call this presenting.  We present our ideas to the people who pay us.  And you know you are done designing when the people you are explaining to “understand” your concept.  Once they “understand” what you did, that’s it.  It has been cast in words.  The creative life has been severed.

Arnheim, in his book Visual Thinking, I believe says it best:

“…language…serves as a mere auxiliary to the primary vehicles of thought, which are so immensely better equipped to represent relevant objects and relations by articulate shape.  The function of language is essentially conservative and stabilizing, and therefore it also tends, negatively, to make cognition static and immobile.”  pp 243-244.

1.  Arnheim.  “Visual Thinking.”  University of California Press;  Bekley, CA.  1969.