Design, babe. Design.

When I hear the word “design” I think of pens and paper, markers and crayons, all coming together in a beautiful mess of artwork. But even with a minor in art, there’s not a lot that jumps into my mind when I hear the word “design” beyond art projects. If I think harder, I come up with the definition that “design” is the journey and not the destination, so this week for class I’m going to take you on a designing journey.

Steven Bradley organizes design into four categories: objects, structure, activities, and relations. He uses these buzzwords to describes the various aspects of design that could be going on within a single piece. To better illustrate this idea, I’ve taken four photographs to illuminate each idea of design. Carly the dachshund has volunteered her time to be my model. She was paid in hotdogs.

Objects: “the basic elements elements at our disposal”– Carly in her most basic pose.

Structure: two objects placed “in relation to one another”– In a picture I don’t mind the idea of two Carlys. I don’t know about real life though.

Activities: elements which convey movement– The word “down” doesn’t mean much to her.

Relations: “objects placed in a composition relate to each other”– In this case, Carly and my stuffed dog, Dean, mutually ignore each other.

In addition to seeing “design” all around me in just one day, our assignment asked us to read between the lines, literally and figuratively, by reading articles to supplement our knowledge of design. The one I mentioned earlier by Steven Bradley, expands on the four elements listed above, to show the many ways that each element can be seen. That’s the thing about art: the most obvious answer isn’t always the right one. Take Relations for example. My initial thought was “this image needs to have two focuses somehow relating to one another”. But the more I read, the more I understood that the relation didn’t need to be blatantly obvious. It didn’t have to be a positive relation. The relation “can imply movement and flow” or (in my case) “convey a concept and theme”. For Carly and Dean, the relationship is strained, as we can see from Carly turning away and Dean’s lack of expression. Carly longs for attention while Dean is content to lie on the bed and enjoy the space.

Another article we read for this week’s assignment was by Singh and Pickard and it analyzed the relationship between what we see in an image and what we are meant to see in an image. Symbolism and design go hand-in-hand to me because much of what I consider “design” (graphics, advertisements) is meant to have symbolism and the interpretation may be different for each individual. When reading the article, I thought of different episodes of Mad Men (which I recently watched every episode of) when Don Draper is pitching an idea to a client, who immediately sees the subliminal message of the advert but then when pitched to a focus group, nobody gets it. Sometimes what we don’t see is just as important as what we do see.

The last article we read was on the connection between visual imagery and written imagery and how design connects the two. Robert St. Clair, of the University of Louisville, describes the ten elements of design (unity, harmony; variety; balance; emphasis; rhythm; movement; pattern; graduation; proportion) and how we use these words to describe a visual design. While I was able to understand the overall concept of St. Clair’s article, I found his language to be difficult to understand and for an article written on design, the layout was poor. Something that has always appealed to me in design is the relationship between words and images. Together they have a beautiful message. So shouldn’t the visual aesthetic by top priority in a paper on which the topic is visual communication? Just a thought.

To end this post, I Googled the word “design”. Of course the first thing to pop up was Wikipedia, but I already had an idea in my head for a definition, so I didn’t need their help. So I went to images. The image search for “design” brought me to roughly a billion colorful, swirly images that looked like they came out of Microsoft Paint. That’s not design to me. To me, design is the plan you make when you’re about to set off on a creative adventure. Whether it’s the Sistine Ceiling or an advertisement for tampons, there’s an element of design in how the images flow together and communicate to the viewer. What do my images of Carly communicate? Love me. Also, I’m hungry.