imprints
i think design is easily misleading. Going down rabbit holes, obsessing over the mundane and prioritizing what you shouldn't. Design, at times, can lead to a whole lot of wasted time, but that's design as a designer; it's hectic, unapologetic and non-negotiable.
But there are always sides to a story. Let's take a book out of product management, shall we? The guiding north-star principle of - 'What does the user want?'. A quote so simple yet so powerful. A constraint and an optimizer that not only provides you a hawk-eye view but also an opportunity to maximize value from every rabbit hole.
Now let's try to repackage this for a designer.
Simple, 'What does the user want?' becomes 'What does the user see?' Finally, design is solved! To think from the user POV, oh divith, you are a genius!
Before you come at me with pitchforks (heh, you're designers), I'll admit this. 'What do you users see?' is vague. You need to go further. To understand the etymology of the word 'see' relevant for design. From a first principles approach, I'd argue that design is,
- To know what is observed
- To know what imprinted
To understand this, let's consider a motorcycle. Initially, a motorcycle would primarily be gawked at for its sleek, curvy design accompanied by a 90-140 page spec sheet which nobody reads. With top speed and torque serving as fodder for spec sheet nerds, it's all kumbaya.
But what is imprinted? The body of the motorcycle? Think about it. Do you know exactly how a Kawasaki Z900 looks? The TVS Raider? An R15?
I thought so.
But what catches your eye about a Pulsar slipping around in the city or a Speed 400 zooming on the highway?
What then catches your eye?
The rear lights. The gold suspension. The bug-headlights.
These are examples of what I call imprints. Imprints are not necessarily stand-out designs, like the accented highlights or carbon fibre, or flame stickers. They are but everyday objects that are just seen every, single, day.
As a bystander stuck in kilometre length traffic, you aren't looking at the aerodynamic slits on the R1 in front. You are zoned on the rear lights that guide you to a stop, shimmering in a bright red.
Imprints are seen every day but are usually never realized, let alone acknowledged. But when you're in the middle of a discussion, it's these imprints that immediately allow you to re-build the rest of the product.
It's this that firms should latch on to. To nudge designers to work towards identify imprints. And then, maybe, finally designers might finally look away from laptops and instead visit factories rather than just being stuck in coffee shops.