Reading Response – Class 8

 

What design means nowadays?

It seems that, nowadays, the word “design” is used so loosely that its meaning gets lost. It appears that everyone is a designer these days. You have engineers of all sorts that can be considered designers, architects, interior designers (as the name already shows it) are designers. Then you have graphic designers, UX designers, clothing designers and the names go on. And so, it gets to a point that when someone says “I am a designer”, it doesn’t mean anything, or even better, it means everything, therefore the person has to be more specific about what kind of designer he/she is. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, design is “the way something has been made, the way parts of something are formed and arranged for a particular use, effect, the process of planning how something will look, happen, be made”. Taking into account this definition, indeed a lot of people can be designers and create designs, because they are creating, making something. Architects are creating buildings, clothing designers, clothes, obviously, interior designers are creating nice spaces, engineers are creating products, technologies, websites and so on.

I agree with the author of “Pleasure Design” in saying that design more than make us happy, it entertains and surprises us. But, who is to say what is considered a good design? Some say that taste is personal and it cannot be discussed, in other words, it cannot be judged. Therefore, who is the judge of a good design? Maybe the design of a person is beautiful to someone and, at the same time, horrible to someone else, as it happens in many cases. It is not like a math problem with one correct solution. It has many solutions, being a very subjective matter.