DESIGN AND DESIGN ACTIVITY: NATURE AND ESSENCE

Levanova Natalia Alexandrovna
Design studio LEVANOVAdesign, Moscow, Russia (117336, Moscow, Garibaldi St., 15, www.levanovadesign.com), candidate of legal sciences, levanovadesign@gmail.com, 8-985-211-40-50

The author examines the essence and concept of design as a type of social activity, questions of its origin, as well as the place and significance of design activity in the life of society. Theoretical problems of design as a science concerning the definition of the concept of “design”, its characteristics and role in the socio-cultural sphere are covered.
The main conclusion is that design should be considered as a socially significant type of social activity that influences the culture of individuals and society as a whole.
Key words: design, design theory, history of design, origin of design, concept of design, signs of design, design activity, design and culture.

“Design is not just about how something looks or feels. Design is about how something works." Steve Jobs “The designer is not interested in the content, and the conditions for the emergence of this content; his job is to outline the space, in which the thing will receive language." G. N. Lola

Introduction

The subject of this study is the nature of design and design activity. The article is an attempt to present this problem as a complex, comprehensive issue that requires philosophical and theoretical study.

Purpose of the study

As the goal of the study, the author puts forward the coverage of various approaches to defining design, its origin and place in the socio-cultural life of society.

Research methods

The following methods were used in the research process: the historical method, which involves considering social phenomena in the light of historical changes; a systematic method that underlies any fundamental research and allows one to present a particular phenomenon in inextricable connection with other elements of the system being studied; analytical method necessary to clarify individual facts and summarize information from literary sources; the method of diachronic and synchronous examination of the material and the descriptive method, which were used for the structural analysis of the material.

Research results and discussion

The English word “design” sounds the same in all languages ​​and does not seem to require translation. Using it, everyone is confident that they know what they are talking about. However, if you ask different people to define design, then most likely we will not hear the same answers, and this is not surprising, since design has many faces, and debates about its essence, origin and relationship with other types of creative activity are still ongoing There is still no consensus on this matter.

The Oxford Dictionary describes the etymological meaning of the word "design" using several verbal nouns and their corresponding verbs. Namely:
1. Organizing individual parts into a single whole - for example, a building, a book, a car, etc.
2. Modeling - creating an image through drawing, drawing, designing, etc.
3. Creating a pattern - arranging lines and shapes into a specific composition: geometric, abstract, floral, etc.
4. Planning - the formation of intentions to act based on the expected sequence of events in order to achieve certain results.

It is obvious that a large number of types of human activity fit these meanings, and it is undeniable that design is always associated with the creation of something. However, what exactly emerges as a result of design, and how does this result relate to the “products” of other processes, and what place does design itself occupy among them? At the same time, we can absolutely say that design as a process is work with ideas to create things, spaces, systems and even events. Plato also wrote in his “Republic” that “a master makes this or that thing, peering into its idea: one makes beds, another makes tables that we need, and the same thing in other cases” [5, p. 390]. At the same time, the master studies both the idea of ​​​​a thing and existing things of a given kind in order to create a thing that best suits the task facing him.

For example, the end user requires a chair. On the one hand, the designer must imagine exactly what qualities and elements make a chair a chair, when we understand that it is it and nothing else. On the other hand, the designer needs to solve a number of “applied” questions: what type of chair should he create, for what purposes and from what material. What will be its color, decor and cost, and also evaluate the possibility of its creation in terms of technology and budget. In addition, the designer needs to clearly understand whether the consumer actually needs the chair. That is, before solving a certain problem, he must formulate it correctly, identifying the true needs of his customer (a person, an organization or society as a whole). In other words, design is aimed at solving certain problems of human existence: comfort, practicality and authenticity, individual and collective behavior. However, it is always associated with certain internal and external restrictions and, satisfying human needs and requirements in a wide variety of areas, is a systemic activity that creates combinations of various components (materials, technologies and algorithms) based on certain elements and principles.

In turn, answering the question of what design is, Bruno Munari in his work “Design as Art” argued that all the talk about beauty, harmony and proportions and balance in relation to design, which, in his opinion, the French are so fond of preoccupied with , hopelessly outdated. Something is beautiful not because it is beautiful, but only because someone likes it. He writes that design is not a style or an applied art, but planning; objective planning of all possible elements that form the environment and atmosphere of life of modern people. This atmosphere is created through the industrial production of everything from glasses to cities. And this planning is carried out without any preconceived ideas about style, but solely as an attempt to give each thing a logical structure and proper material [see. 8, p. 35].

Despite the fact that Western literature on design dates back more than half a century, there is still no single point of view on this issue. While there are a large number of definitions of design developed in the specialized literature, there is also a definition adopted in 1964 by the international seminar on design education in Bruges.According to the latter, “design is a creative activity whose purpose is to determine the formal qualities of industrial products. These qualities include the external features of the product, but mainly those structural and functional relationships that transform the product into a single whole, both from the point of view of the consumer and from the point of view of the manufacturer" [2, p. 14].

This definition leaves no doubt that it refers to only one type of design activity - industrial design. However, the practice of design is an unusually complex activity and it is very difficult to draw the line between design and other areas of professional creative activity. At the same time, a professional designer must solve many problems and at the same time act as a coordinator of the efforts of various specialists. The emergence of such types of activities as conceptual (speculative) design, behavioral design, environmental design, etc. indicates that everything is not so simple both in the real functioning of design and in its theoretical understanding. “As soon as designers take a step back from projects in the field of industrial production and commerce, they find themselves in a completely different world: the world of reality of the unreal, fictional; what we used to call conceptual design or design of ideas” [7, p. 25].

“...isolation from commerce opens up a parallel world, free from market pressure, and allows you to immerse yourself in reflection on the ideas and pressing problems of our time. New opportunities are emerging for the practice of design itself, for aesthetic understanding of technology; to reflect on the social, cultural and ethical implications of scientific research, and to work on a range of large-scale social and political issues such as democracy, sustainable development of society, alternatives to the current model of capitalism. The ability to question, provoke and inspire is the defining feature of conceptual design."

Embedded in human nature, design has been an essential element of human culture since time immemorial. People constantly transform themselves and their communities into different forms and cultures, designing clothing and jewelry, shaping the environment and entire systems, combining symbolic meaning with utilitarianism and carefully considering details, including those that go beyond the basic functions of certain objects. Perhaps man is not the only creature who shapes his environment using various tools and devices, but he is certainly the only one who decorates them. For example, the tradition of decorating homes with symbols and images goes back at least 40,000 years, and tools and “jewelry” were created even earlier.

Man constantly and systematically transforms his environment, objects of use, and even his behavior. By the time of the Late Paleolithic (approximately 50,000 years ago), the pace of development of the stone industry accelerated, as did the level of general human skills and abilities. Different groups of early people formed their own cultural identities and developed certain ways of creating various objects and things. More and more efficient design over the millennia led to the development of more efficient living environments, which gradually developed into villages and cities, and then countries, which required planning, the creation of service systems and structures, until finally mass production and standardization of what was produced in a large number of products did not replace manual labor, and the development of new technologies did not lead to industrialization, when the use of machines incredibly strengthened production capabilities and increased the number of different types of production and economic sectors.

Factories began to produce more goods, improved roads speeded up transportation, and improved means of transportation made the movement of goods, people, and ideas more intense. The need for planning and control over production led to an abundance of designers in all fields, gradually turning them into a social and political force in modern society. Design became an integral part of public life, social and fashion events, as well as countless objects symbolizing new standards of living and belonging to a certain class. Furniture, carpets, dishes, clothing and accessories - everything had to be produced in accordance with the requirements of fashion and status. Even the shape and size of city streets, government buildings, and public housing reflected the design of society and the spatial environment in accordance with certain ideas, demonstrating the way people lived and carrying encoded messages about belonging to a particular status.

And yet, design is much more than just things on a shelf - it is also the creation of the shelves themselves, and the buildings for these shelves, and the light for the buildings, and the streets on which the buildings are located, and the entire space surrounding them, including theory and practice urban planning, production systems and transportation methods, advertising and navigation systems, and so on, and so on, and so on. By and large, we can say that the world in which we live is the result of human design activity [9, p. 6]. Design products surround us everywhere: buildings, interiors, furniture, clothing, gadgets and computers, even virtual reality - absolutely everything is created using design. As mentioned above, an integral part of human existence is the desire to change, adapt and improve the world around us, however, recently the destructive impact of human technologies and systems on the environment has become increasingly obvious. “Human existence is a design strategy directed against nature,” Vilém Flusser believed, “... as we bridge the gap between art and technology, we can become more and more improved in design, gain more and more freedom from the restrictions imposed on us by nature, more and more turn our life into art. But we pay for this by abandoning the real and true” [1, pp. 21-22].

Early 20th-century optimism about the continued improvement of the human condition through technological development diminished significantly after World War II, which demonstrated that modern technology and design products could cause mass destruction and destruction. Among other things, the extreme damage to the environment became evident. Therefore, modern design, among other things, must explore the behavior and relationships of people who determine the nature of the products created, analyze people's reactions to interaction with new technologies, materials and ways of behavior. Ultimately, design should contribute not only to improving the quality of human existence, but also to improve the condition of the environment, as well as the person himself.

In modern literature, the opinion about the emergence of design in connection with the development of industry, based on its modernist perception as a derivative of fundamental practices - art and technology, is increasingly being challenged. As V. Flusser wrote in his work: “The word “design” penetrated the gap between science and art that formed by the end of the 19th century and formed a kind of transition from the first to the second - only because it again sounds the same connection between art and technology . In this regard, today the term “design” denotes the point of intersection of these two areas, scientific thinking and evaluative (creative) thinking - the starting point of a new culture” [1, p. 20]. However, despite the fact that “the institutionalization of design as a social practice actually occurs in the era of industrial revolutions, and the process of its self-determination is associated with those changes in society that are called technogenic,” “to imagine it as a product of the industrial revolution, at least , incorrect" [3, p. 37]. According to G.N. Lola, “design as a certain way of a person’s relationship with a thing coincides with the moment when a person became concerned about his place of residence and vaguely realized not only physical, but also existential dependence on it, the meaning of which, according to M. Heideger, lies in the concept “ethos” - the open area in which a person lives” [3, p. 38]. In other words, design is not just the activity of designing objects and images, but an important element of human culture, capable of guiding its development and transforming existing reality.

In order to fulfill its mission, the design must meet certain characteristics, among which the following are noted in the literature: functionality, reliability, applicability, professionalism, creativity. Making a design functional requires a basic knowledge of design history and methods, as well as technical knowledge to create what is intended to be created. Regarding the functionality of design, there is a question - is visual appeal part of it? If so, how much of the functionality depends on the implementation of practical tasks, and how much on visual stimulation and satisfaction? In this regard, it is advisable to separate the practical and emotional usefulness and ease of use of a design product.

As for reliability as a design feature, it also stems from technical characteristics and the correct choice of structural components and construction methods. Compliance with the criterion of applicability or “consumer friendliness” [9, p. 22] is a challenge for the designer, who must be aware of the habits and preferences of the end consumer to whom his design relates. In the absence of an end user, for example when a designer creates something completely new, he needs to introduce that end user and possibly test the prototype. Moreover, the designer must anticipate various scenarios of interaction between the consumer and the design object and be ready to provide an appropriate solution for each of them. Much discussion regarding the applicability and consumer-friendliness of design arises in the field of interaction design for computer interfaces, desktop technologies, and handheld devices. The basic rule of applicable design in these cases is that the user should be able to use it without studying the instructions, that is, the process of using the new application should be comfortable and without much effort.

A sign of professionalism means that a new design should allow consumers to do something better, more efficiently and more productively than the same design before it. To do this, the designer must be an innovator who pushes the existing boundaries of what is possible, with appropriate knowledge of materials, technology, manufacturing process, etc. He must also be aware of the difficulties and limitations that he has to overcome. All this can be achieved only through constant research and study of the needs, problems and difficulties existing in society, turning them into advantages. Regarding creativity, we can say that a creative design is a design that is not only better than the previous one, but also different from the previous one. In recent years, creativity has emerged primarily in the field of computers and communications technology, while throughout the 20th century, designers created more and more products to improve people's daily lives.

The design process itself is a complex intellectual and creative process that requires the designer to have various knowledge and skills and includes various stages of design activity from problem formulation and inspiration to presentation and implementation of the project. In addition, design is impossible without communication and a clear organization of the process within a given time and financial framework, unless, of course, it is a conceptual design, although it also presupposes the presence of certain requirements and restrictions, like any other type of design. At the same time, working in a particular field of design requires the presence, in addition to “general design” knowledge and skills, of special skills and information. So, for example, a good clothing designer does not necessarily have to be a good furniture designer and vice versa, although, of course, one does not exclude the other.

Nevertheless, the basic principles and means of design are the same for all its areas. All designers work with shape, size, color and other elements, although they use them differently, and all designers implement their projects in the interests of their clients or intended consumers. The designer accumulates practical, aesthetic and technical information in the context of a specific problem and proposes a solution to it. He also acts as an intermediary between the client and production, as well as between them and the market. Sometimes design is primarily about creating something new and useful, sometimes it's about creating something beautiful or functional, and sometimes it's about both. In addition, design very often changes the nature of interaction with everyday objects and the environment. “In the modern culture of immediate information and interactive technologies, the designer needs to instinctively feel the audience’s reaction and form its “relationship” with the objects of design: objects, space and environment” [9, p. 205]. Don Norman, in his book The Design of Simple Things, captured the idea of ​​perceived affordances: for a consumer to interact with an object (real or on screen), it is necessary to ensure that he has no problem perceiving, describing and interpreting the meaning and purpose of that object, because if any thing gives a wrong signal, a person always feels irritated. In addition, when faced with something new, a person always begins to look for inconsistencies.

The user-centered design process is a series of activities carried out by designers to ensure that the design product is easy to accept, learn, or use. And here we are dealing with mental and conceptual models. A mental model is a thought process aimed at understanding how something works (that is, understanding the world around us). Mental models are based on incomplete facts, past experiences, and even intuitive perceptions. They help shape actions and behavior, influence what people pay attention to in difficult situations, and determine how they approach problems [see 6, p. 90-92]. Mental models are created very quickly and often even before direct interaction with the design product. They also change over time and are used by consumers of design to understand what to do with these products and how to behave. In other words, a mental model is a person’s idea of ​​the object with which he interacts.

In contrast to the mental model, “a conceptual model is an operating model that a person receives when becoming familiar with the design and/or interface of a particular product” [6, p. 93]. The secret to successful design that meets the intuitive expectations of the consumer is to match the conceptual model of the product to his mental model. When a consumer is presented with a completely new product for which they do not yet have a mental model, outreach and education must be carried out to prepare the target audience to develop a new mental model, and one of the best ways to convey new information is through stories and stories that make this information is more understandable, interesting and memorable.

Considering all of the above, we can argue that design, and therefore the activities of the designer, influence the culture as a whole and shape the experience of the consumer of design products within certain time boundaries through wordless dialogue. Take, for example, rhythm as a manifestation of time, perceived in the form of a certain sequence. Since design perception always occurs in real time, time is an essential factor in design. In this case, we are not talking about clock time, which is a scientific measurement category, but about real time, which we feel from birth, the time of feelings, thoughts and memory. A person perceives time through the ability to foresee and remember. In relation to design objects, we can say that they anticipate the future, then are introduced into a certain environment, observed and studied, becoming part of individual experience and the world structure.

In addition, four stages in the consumer's time process relate to this or the formative design object (a specific product, system, or environment as a whole). The first stage is initial impact, when the consumer first encounters the product design and forms a first impression, and this moment is not at all related to the hour period. For design, this is the “sensory” impact at the moment when the user has a desire to be processed in this design, to learn more, to receive and use what he saw. At the same time, as mentioned above, the designer needs to ensure a certain degree of recognition and familiarity even in the case of the presentation of a completely new product, having previously conveyed the relevant information to the target audience.

The second stage is the formation of a consumer’s attitude towards the design product, which occurs over a certain period of time necessary for the user to get rid of the initial discomfort of novelty and doubt. At this stage, the new product of design activity becomes “safe” for the mental perception of the target audience. At the third stage, the design object acquires its identity and recognition, integrating into the ideological system of users who stop testing it and asking questions about it. And finally, at the last, fourth stage, the design product becomes familiar and familiar to the consumer, no longer requiring any ideas or instructions. The moment of initial impact is erased from memory, leaving a lasting feeling of familiarity and reliability. At the same time, for different products of design activity, the time required to go through all four stages is different and requires different experiences, both practical and emotional.

Timing also has a lot to do with environmental and sustainable design. When we talk about sustainable design, we mean attention to the entire life cycle of a design product from creation and use to disposal. In other words, the designer must take into account the “movement” of all elements over time, in particular the materials used in terms of production, use and processing, and the design process must be considered in the unity of the life cycle of all elements, and not just the final product. If the designer looks at the design object not only in terms of its current use, but also in terms of the past and future, design takes on a new dimension and environmental challenges are built into the process of using materials over time. For example, plastic bottles are turned into jackets, which in turn are turned into park benches, which, although they have a longer lifespan, can also be recycled.

Regarding sustainable design, we can say that it is a design that is acceptable, reasonable, safe for the environment and takes into account the interests of the environment. “Sustainable design is defined as a philosophy of creating individual objects or a complex construction of an environment based on the principles of economic, social and environmental sustainability” [4, p. 107]. In everyday practice, the concepts of “ecological” and “sustainable” design are used almost interchangeably. In any case, this is a method of design, the purpose of which is to harmonize the relations between society and the environment, to form a worldview, consumer and aesthetic requirements of people in accordance with the capabilities of nature, as well as to ensure its conservation and minimize the harmful effects at all stages of the life of the design object.

In everyday practice, the concepts of “ecological” and “sustainable” design are used almost interchangeably. In any case, this is a method of design, the purpose of which is to harmonize the relations between society and the environment, to form a worldview, consumer and aesthetic requirements of people in accordance with the capabilities of nature, as well as to ensure its conservation and minimize the harmful effects at all stages of the life of the design object. These standards provide building owners and users with a system for identifying and practically applying Green building design, construction and operation.

Conclusions

Design endows things, and the objective world as a whole, with the ability to provide human communication in the process of their use and visual perception. With the help of design, things acquire a symbolic and communicative essence and become a carrier of certain information (worldview, aesthetic, social, etc.), expressed by certain means and in a certain form. The very process of consuming things, according to J. Baudrillard, is a process of signification and communication, which is connotated by the process of classification and social differences. Among other things, design cannot be indifferent even to politics, since it is created on the basis of certain values ​​and statements, including ideology.

The sociocultural significance of design lies in the fact that it is capable of transmitting ideas into cultural space on a global level, covering any interactions in this area that directly or indirectly include traces and products of design. A shift in emphasis to this aspect of it occurs as material resources, scientific data and human masses grow, since in these conditions it is not need that causes demand for a particular product, but the product itself, through advertising, brings to life the need for it. Designers, in turn, transmit to society new norms, values ​​and standards of behavior and consumption, as well as life models in general.

At the level of cultural space, the role of design is to create a humanized and meaningful space for both the individual and the entire society, through exploration and understanding of their needs. To do this, it is necessary to explore design both from a historical perspective and in terms of the “lived experience” of end consumers. Objects, clothing, the environment and human behavior are part of people's everyday activities and are endowed with certain meanings. Through design, the things, spaces and systems in which people and their organizations exist and develop are created, and this is the inestimable power of design, which can be used for both good and harm.

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