Engineers Optimize – Designers Invent
At this time in our history we are no longer limited by our industrial capacity. We are constrained almost entirely by our imagination. Because of this, the designer has become preeminent in the development process.
Until recent generations, far too many manual calculations were needed to design much of anything and those development projects required extensive expertise in math and physics — hence the leading role of the engineer.
Today much of this engineering intelligence is built right into design tools and standardized catalog items with expertise now mostly a matter of intuition. As a result, engineers undertaking product design are little more than designers who happen to understand a bit more about the underlying science.
Components are engineered.
Products are designed.
Today three dimensional math models can be constructed without making a single manual calculation. Indeed an engineer programmed the tools for this sort of fluidity, but they can’t claim to create a finished product because of this.
Of course, examples could be laid at my feet showing examples of machines and complex instruments requiring lots of math and science. But I’ve rarely, if ever, seen anything truly new that wasn’t the product of artful thinking.
Engineers optimize.
Designers invent.
