For my first reading reflection assignment, I'll be focusing on what I found interesting through chapters 1-6 of John Heskett's "Design: A Very Short Introduction".
Chapter One attempts to explain what design actually is as compared to what many people think it is. Design, as the book says, is a very vague field and even the word itself can be interpreted many ways. I found one line quite interesting: "Design is to design a design to produce a design". This line was shown to me first in lecture, but when I read over it in the book I really grasped the complexity and open-endedness that the design field entails. Heskett explains in chapter one how design is all around us, and almost everything we see has been designed by some human being. This, once again, opened my eyes to how crucial design is to human society today.
Heskett goes on to talk about the historical evolution of design in chapter 2. What I found interesting in this chapter was how he explains how early human beings created tools as extensions of the hand. Early tools were created in order to maximize the effeciency at which humans could perform a certain task, but they needed the hand to actually use the tools. I never looked at the human hand in such a way, never really thought of all of its functions and how tools today are still, at their core, extensions of the functions of the hand.
In Chapter Three, Heskett outlines the concepts of utility and significance. Right off the bat, another quote from lecture appeared in the book, this one coming from Louis Sullivan; "Form follows function. This is the law". This sets the tone for the rest of the chapter, where Heskett attempts to break the idea of function into two parts, utility and significance. Utility being how well the object can serve its purpose, and significance being how forms can assume a certain meaning to their users. He uses examples such as the Rolls-Royce (a finely crafted automobile which, when purchased, is a sign of wealth and status) to show how utility and significance co-exist.
In Chapter Four, Heskett discusses objects and their relevance to design and human society, and also how designers design and market these objects to the general public. He delves into designers work attitudes, where some are focused more on being artsy and edgy to make something marketable, while others are focused more on maintaining the integrity and control of their design over what other businesses are telling them to do. He goes on to explain how design firms work, where the head designer still makes his mark on his designs, but said designs are not as personal when the designer has had help from a team of designers (that's a lot of design going on in one sentence). I found it interesting how he explained how some big name designers will have a firm but also will have an individual business on the side so they can still create their own, personal designs to market to clients.
Chapter Five I found quite interesting because Heskett begins to talk a little about two-dimensional material, such as the material that involves the work of a graphic designer. He begins the chapter by explaining the difference between objects and communications, where objects can exist in their own form and do not need any further explaination, whereas communications material makes it point right off the bat with text and imagery intertwining to tell of a certain idea or advertise a certain good. He also goes into detail about graphic designers and how they are crucial for many businesses to market their goods. I never took notice to how much graphic design is out there, whether it be a logo or a flyer for an event. After I read this certain section of this chapter I took a look around my dorm and was able to see a TON of different designs, all presumably made by a graphic designer somewhere.
Chapter Six focuses on environments and how they play a large role in behavior, expectations, and use. Heskett also outlines the work of the interior designer in this chapter. I liked how, in the chapter, he explains the differences between American and Japanese bathrooms. He mentions how Americans generally have no problems when they want to add an appliance or piece of furniture to their home, whereas people living in Japan have much less space, so delicate planning needs to be done in order to accomodate certain additions to the home. Their bathrooms are much smaller and less decorated than ours, so at first glance one may think they are worse, yet they serve the same function and purpose that American bathrooms do, with the same efficiency. This takes me back to the concept of form following function. No matter what the field of design you are in, this concept seems to always be at the front of a designers mind, and is a recurring concept in the text.
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