Design Happens in a World of Ideas
For physical objects (and sometimes for software), a design process endeavors to construct a symbolic model of physical shapes and working properties.
As Plato describes it, design is something that happens inside a world of ideas. Here, an object can be theoretically exact, whereas nothing can be made exactly in a world full workbenches and factory assembly lines.
For instance, when I design printed circuit boards, I gather and organize the electrical information and convert these relationships into symbolic forms I can see on screen. Then I place the parts and connect the wires. All of this happens inside a computer model using symbols to represent ideas—which sounds obvious, yet is centrally important because this clearly reveals the heart of the design process – symbolic thinking (especially creative thinking).
There are other ways to create these models. Industrial designers tend to work with real materials to represent their ideas, then perfect the model with tradition engineering methods. In the ‘old days’ models were made by layout experts drafting carefully with fancy pencils and electric erasers on tilted drafting boards. Now we used CAD software.
Yet, no matter the tools and methods, as long as I am developing ideas I am designing. Once a model is complete, I’ll then release a host of tedious instructions used to make actual assemblies. When I begin this release process, I am no longer designing.
In the end, the finished assemblies are very close to the ideal model, but not exactly. In fact, one of the great debates throughout all of engineering history is how much of a difference is tolerable.
Of course, I am being too neat and tidy about all of this – as though the symbolic world of ideas and the material world of physical objects are widely separated. Creative people are moving back and forth between these two worlds all the time – often working in both at the same time.
Nonetheless, design and the results of design are always two different things.
Ken Ramsley
