Design Experienced

I was asked to remember my first positive memory of design. Not design as in the courses I am taking, but design as in a well-designed product or image. As I recollect on my past experiences with products I recall for their design I encounter a conundrum. Dieter Rams’ quote “good design is as little design as possible” from his ten principles of design comes to mind in that all the products I encounter that are well-designed I hardly notice due to their good design. Design I notice is obtrusive and counter-intuitive. Design I remember is frustrating and not good design at all. It was only until I was old enough to appreciate good design that I began to remember it.

I remember my parents VCR and how it ate tapes if the stop button was not pressed before doing anything. I thought “why is this not better? how come this was released with such an obvious flaw?” I remember one of my first raincoats as a child. The colors were sloppily chosen and their values did not harmonize at all. The coat also did not stop the rain due to inferior materials and bad ingenuity when it came to the construction of the garment. I remember awkwardly large and graphically cluttered advertising and packaging that was no more than a waste of color and materials. When thinking about all these bad designs I am able to draw something positive from it though. It left me asking “how can this be better?” and drove me to where I am today in pursuit of a degree in design and, more importantly, a career. My first positive experience of design is that I don’t have one because it was well-designed. I didn’t notice it because it became an extension of me and my needs, which is what all design should be; an extension of ourselves and our needs.