455

«What is good design in your eyes?»

«The nearest I have ever come to defining good design is that it is simply 98 per cent common sense. But what makes the subject so interesting is the other two per cent, what you may call aesthetics. Many products are demonstrably good, but those with that extra two per cent have a magic ingredient that places them in another category altogether – it is the difference between something that is perfectly acceptable and something that is so special that everybody wants to own it.»

«When the magic ingredient is present, the whole quality of life is improved. Good design gives you pleasure and improves the quality of all our lives through products that work well, are affordable and look beautiful. As Corbusier said, good design really is simply intelligence made visible.»

Sir Terence Conran (1931-2020)

Interview: Sir Terence Conran on Democratising Good Design, The Design Sheppard, February 1, 2012. Contribución de Cristina Fernández Marcos, Taller de Diseño, Universidad de Navarra, 28 mayo 2024.

422

«Engineers are not the only professional designers. Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones. The intellectual activity that produces material artifacts is no different fundamentally from the one that prescribes remedies for a sick patient or the one that devises a new sales plan for a company or a social welfare policy for a state. Design, so constructed, is the core of all professional training: is the principal mark that distinguises the professions from the sciences. Schools of engineering, as well as schools of architecture, business, education, law, and medicine, are all centrally concerned with the process of design.»

Herbert Alexander Simon (1916-2001)

Herbert A. Simon, The Science of Design: Creating the Artificial. Design Issues. Vol. 4, No. 1/2, Designing the Immaterial Society (1988), p. 67. Published by The MIT Press.

409

Cos’è il design?

«C’è una definizione per ciascun designer. Per me deve essere praticabile, funzionale, ma anche esprimere un’emozione e una critica. Non essere acquiescente, ma sempre un po’ aberrante. Per essere interessante, un oggetto deve contenere un errore: troppo rosso, troppo grande, troppo kitsch; così lo si guarda con attenzione diversa, nasce un legame di sentimenti.»

Alessandro Mendini (1931-2019)

Alessandro Mendini: “I miei oggetti nascono dalle parole”, Bruno Ruffilli, La Stampa, 09 Dicembre 2017.

402

designing is not a profession but an attitude

Design has many connotations. It is the organization of materials and processes in the most productive, economic way, in a harmonious balance of all elements necessary for a certain function. It is not a matter of façade, of mere external appearance; rather it is the essence of products and institutions, penetrating and comprehensive. Designing is a complex and intricate task. It is the integration of technological, social, and economic requirements, biological necessities, and the psychophysical effects of materials, shape, color, volume and space: thinking in relationships.

László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946)

Moholy-Nagy, László, Vision in Motion, Paul Theobald, Chicago, 1947, p. 42.

398

«DESIGN IS the application of intent: the process through which we create the material, spatial, visual and experiential environments in a world made ever more malleable by advances in technology and materials, and increasingly vulnerable to the effects of unleashed global development.»

Montréal Design Declaration.

Montréal Design Declaration, issued at the 2017 Montréal World Design Summit, World Design Summit Organization Inc., Montréal, Canada, 2017.

397

«Diseñar es habilitar el espacio para que otros puedan diseñar.»

Mauro Gilfournier, Arquitecturas Afectivas.

@mgilfour, Twitter, 21 junio 2022.

391

«Design is making sense of things (to others).»

Klaus Krippendorff

Klaus Krippendorff, Design Research, an Oxymoron?, University of Pennsylvania, ScholarlyCommons, Departmental Papers (ASC), Annenberg School for Communication, 2007.

375

“Design is both a skillset and a mindset – a particular way of thinking about a problem, putting materials together to achieve a function, creating meaning that leads to new ideas. They use our head, heart and hand. The head enables us to frame the right questions, explore diverse types of knowledge and make a creative and daring leap to an answer. The heart tells us to empathise with the people who are affected, understanding what works for them while thinking about the collective impact on others and our planet, as well as building relationships with organisations and individuals that might be involved in future solutions. The hand puts our creativity into use, working with materials to bring ideas to life and manipulate them into prototypes and real life objects and digital products and systems”.

“El diseño es tanto un conjunto de habilidades como una mentalidad, una forma particular de pensar acerca de un problema, de unir piezas para lograr una función, y de crear un significado que conduzca a nuevas ideas. Usa cabeza, corazón y mano. La cabeza nos permite enmarcar las preguntas correctas, explorar diversos tipos de conocimiento y dar un salto creativo y atrevido hacia una respuesta. El corazón nos dice que debemos empatizar con las personas que se ven afectadas, comprender lo que funciona para ellas mientras pensamos en el impacto colectivo en los demás y en nuestro planeta, así como construir relaciones con organizaciones e individuos que podrían ser parte de soluciones futuras. La mano lleva a la práctica nuestra creatividad, trabajando con diferentes elementos para dar vida a las ideas y tangibilizarlas en prototipos y objetos reales, productos digitales y sistemas”.

Design Council

Moving beyond financial value: How might we capture the social and environmental value of design? Mission Oriented Innovation Network (Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose) and Design Council, 2020. Defining Design, p. 19. Traducción de María Navarro, Gerente en Asociación de Disenadores de la Comunidad Valenciana, LinkedIn, 2021.

364

“Diseñar ha de seguir siendo la actividad creativa que proporciona a la colectividad aquellos objetos útiles y esenciales que precisa para mejorar su bienestar. [...] Objetos como lo pueden ser un mueble o también una simple tijera... Es a mi entender en esta específica creatividad de cosas útiles y esenciales que reside la esencia de lo que considero el papel del diseño hoy.”

André Ricard

Ser diseñador. Ayer, hoy, mañana. Proyecta 56: An industrial design journal. 1, 2021, pp.20-21.

345

“El diseño es una actividad que organiza el mundo de lo artificial para hacerlo más confortable e insertarlo en la vida social. Es decir, el diseño resuelve problemas, pero también proporciona significados para que los objetos sean útiles en las relaciones humanas.”

Eugenio Vega

Eugenio Vega: «El diseño proporciona significados para que los objetos sean útiles en las relaciones humanas», por Pablo Delgado, ABC Cultural, 19 mayo 2020.

338

“El diseño es una forma de pensamiento”

Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958)

BEL GEDDES, Norman (2013) “El diseño es una forma de pensamiento”. Infolio nº 2. Madrid. ISSN 2255.4564. [fecha de consulta: 26/11/2020]. Este artículo fue originalmente publicado en “Horizons” editado por John Lane para The Bodley Head en 1934.

336

“Sin embargo, hoy todo es objeto de diseño. Así que quizá, a pesar de esa falta de distancia, del tamaño excesivo del objeto de definición, de esa contingencia extrema y de la ausencia de método, habrá que arriesgarse y esbozar una definición a partir de las herramientas que nos proporciona la filosofía:
El diseño define cómo aparece el objeto en el mundo.

Y su corolario:
Dado que hoy el mundo se compone de objetos e incluso el mundo es en sí un objeto debido al enorme alcance de la producción industrial, el diseño define cómo aparece el mundo.”

Luis Montero

El diseño de nosotros mismos. Una lectura filosófica del diseño. Experimenta Theoria, Madrid, junio, 2020, p.34-35.

334

«The designer's job is to imagine the world not how it is, but how it should be.»

Sir Terence Conran (1931-2020)

As quoted by Damon Syson, Wallpaper, 2020.09.13.

332

“Design is about imagining the future and being good at deciding how to get there. Designers consider the options and make choices. Good designers are good choosers.”

Debera Johnson, Professor and Chair, Department of Industrial Design, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York.

Hannah, Bruce (2004). Becoming a Product Designer. A Guide to Careers in Design, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey, Page 18.

321

“Design is no longer a word or a profession, it is a philosophy –a doctrine– a way of living, a modus operandi, a way of being and will one day be seamless with existence”

Karim Rashid

Design Now! Charlotte & Peter Fiell (Editors). Taschen GmbH, Köln, Germany, 2007.

313

"Design is about seeing opportunities. [...] It’s a way of constantly looking at the world around you and trying to make it better, and especially to make it easier. I want to make things simple so that things don’t take time from you which they don’t deserve."

Oliver Grabes, Braun design director.
The future of design, WIRED in partnership with BRAUN, 20 August 2018.

310

"Design is a tool to bring new ideas to the market. We have many good ideas in Europe, but if we are not capable of bringing them to the market, they will have no impact at all. Moreover, today it’s not really about products anymore. It’s about solutions that address users’ needs. This is design: integrating the users’ needs from the start of the process."

Mark Nicklas, Deputy Head of Unit, Innovation Policy for Growth – European Commission
Highlights from Design-driven innovation in the food industry at EXPO Milano 2015, Design for Europe, 17 July 2015.

299

"To design is to influence people. To design is to build new connections in people's minds. To design is to build relationships where there previously weren't any."

Mike Monteiro
Ruined by Design. How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It. Edited by Ani King and Erika Hall, 2019, p.142.

219

"Design: The knowledge to creatively find user focused solutions, including both functional and aesthetic aspects, in shaping merchandise, services, processes, messages, and environments."

Robin Edman, Chief Executive, Swedish Industrial Design Foundation
Design as a Force for Development, Pretoria, South Africa, September 15, 2006.

206

"Il design è per noi una disciplina creativa globale di matrice artistica e poetica, una delle forme d'arte più tipiche dell'epoca che stiamo vivendo"

Alberto Alessi
IGN Italy Global Nation (Adnkronos/Adnkronos Cultura), Design: Dibattito al Parco della Musica di Roma, Roma, 21 Aprile 2008.