On Design and Words
What you are reading now is the first post in my journal. You may be questioning the importance of having a journal on a page where design objects are showcased. Or you may wonder whether it's merely another effort to generate content (often produced by one of those prevalent AI bots) in an attempt to attract potential customers, leading them to believe there is more here than the anticipated generic product images.
I genuinely hope that this is not how this journal will be perceived. I hope this journal will add a sense of transparency to the process behind the objects I design—the material process as well as the immaterial process. In a world overrun with products, I believe that it’s more important than ever before to feel attached to the objects we choose to hold on to. So much that they will stay with us for a lifetime and more lifetimes to come.
As a designer, I’ve always felt that there was a disconnect between the written words and the tangible materiality of objects. What I was getting from one was lacking from the other, without ever complementing each other. From the moment we enter design universities, the two are treated like separate fields. In a way they are. Of the many sketching approaches we learned and familiarised ourselves with, writing was never one of them. Everything had to originate from materials to become something material. That was the logic, I suppose. I was always struggling with the sketching part, always feeling constrained, not able to shut out my thoughts and surrender myself to the ephemeral nature and the separate life of the morphing shapes. I spent years figuring out the right approach for creating—perhaps because I had not yet identified this disconnect within myself. At times I would wonder if design was even the right field for me. Over time I’ve come to see and understand the connectedness and interdependence of the two worlds, the written and the material, and the profound, intricate bond they hold in me.
I will not pretend to be the first one to draw a connection between language and design. Numerous scholars have extensively analysed the language and sign systems of objects, spanning from Roland Barthes to Jean Baudrillard. However, design is and has often been studied from the perspective of the consumer, society or even the object itself; how we use our belongings as signifiers, how they form a non verbal language that help us navigate the social world, and how certain objects may be seen as having their own form of life or consciousness. In this post I would like to flip the perspective and write from my own experience. As a storyteller, as a problem solver, as a designer.
I’ve always been drawn to and needed systems. Very clear structures and definitions of the world surrounding me. If there is no clear system, it’s as if everything just melts together and becomes indiscernible, at times even frightening and overwhelming. Something that is not defined can potentially be anything. Whenever the world seems unclear, all mashed and difficult to navigate, I’ll write all my thoughts down in my little red notebook. A good old method that always offers a cathartic release. It was not until I read Victor Papanek’s ‘Design for the Real World’ that I was able to connect the two processes, boiled down to one sentence: “Design is the conscious and intuitive effort to impose meaningful order.” In other words, design is a way of creating order in the world.
I realised that the same sense of release happened when I ‘solved’ a problem with an object that was in the process of becoming and had not yet found its final shape. The ‘release’ that comes from the design process is the outcome of a process that starts with identifying a problem. The nature of the problem can vary in complexity or significance from “I need a better reading light” to more weighty issues. Whatever the problem might be, there is a long phase following the identification of the problem to the object finding its final shape.
Chaos unfolds. Fleeting meanings and potentials, combinations and messages. A tightrope wire suspended between the roofs of two skyscrapers and spectators waiting in the streets in awe. Which shape is right for this object? What materials, what textures, what tactility does it call for? There is a nagging, almost painful uneasiness from the moment you know what functional solution is needed to the moment when the object falls into place with its predestined form expression. A disturbance coming from the disorder. Nothing is fused together, every little potential part is choppy and inflexible, and has no connection with the other parts. Something just isn't right. Is there a right and a wrong at this stage?
A scaffold or a railing is needed to hold everything in place and help the users and spectators not lose balance. The words, once leaving the tip of the pen, are reacquainted with each other. Children taking seats on the long wooden school benches after a long summer break. There is a flexibility in the written word that is not found in the material world. Words create a material reality in the mind. How to channel this potential into the object is the role of the designer.