My personal view about what design is

1. what is design? Shimon Shmueli Touch360

2. design is always an expression • a thought process • an object on the art-design continuum • an optimized solution • a holistic approach • a system • an interconnected ecosystem • a celebration of creativity • a tastier apple • a system • a whole (gestalt) • a tease • a desire • an image in our brain that reflects our memories, emotions, etc. and may have little to do with the physical object • always an experience • good or bad experience (or anything between) • a hype, buzzword, fad, or eternal creation • an invisible object that just does the job • an artifact just for tease • karim, philippe, or omer • sustainable or an agent of mass destruction (or distraction) • design is not the solution for everything • the next president of the US will not be a designer • ceo’s should not (necessarily be designers) • I don’t know what design thinking is and how it is different than engineering or business thinking • is it the same as medicine thinking? • design is every mckenzie, abdullah, and greenberg • even I am one • and God (I don’t take chances with him) shows signs of great talent • to be a good designer you need to ride, fly, dive, or do anything to live the product-human interaction beyond the momentary fetishism of caressing an ipod • adopt an aztec (car) • design is theatre • design (and designers) tells a story • obama is a designer • and so is rush • and of course some design is great and some is just stupid • everything is designed • • •

3. Whole, gestalt, 1+1=3, are all expression of the fact that design is about finding an optimized solutions that bring components together to form something of bigger value to everyone. Design is really about taking various parts (tangible or intangible) that don’t necessarily naturally fit together, and make them co-exist to form something that is perceived by the user as one.

4. Design is the process of applying creativity in order to optimize a solution that addresses human needs and wants in various contexts under constraints (and enablers) and in order to meet given objectives

5. “ design is art optimized to meet objectives” - Me © Design Within Reach

6. is this engineering or design? as the complexity of products increase, even when the objectives are exactly the same, we see divergence in solutions that increasingly depend on intuition, experience, philosophy, approach, and other “softer” skills, and less on strictly science and engineering.

7. BMW’s Gina every product is somewhere on the art-design continuum - always expressions, always serve a purpose

8. introvert extrovert What is art and what is design? They are really not different. They are the same, but just on different points on a continuum. Let’s map various creations on the introvert-extrovert continuum creator’s self-expression number of stakeholders number of decision makers

9. Anonymous Graffiti is the one of the sincerest forms of expression. It usually serves no one but the graffiti artist him/herself. To the graffiti artist , the city is the canvas, his spray can budget and police are the constraints... In a way, graffiti is one of the purest art forms

10. introvert extrovert

11. Richard Sapper A laptop is designed under many constraints, but it is still a form of expression from the designer point of view.

12. introvert extrovert

13. Roy Lichtenstein When creating this one, one assumes, the artist was concerned about how others will perceive it and is a bit less about self expression than graffiti

14. introvert extrovert

15. Philippe Starck

16. introvert extrovert

17. Frank Ghery

18. introvert extrovert

19. functionality now let’s map them on the functionality continuum: the weight given during their creation to pure functionality high functionality component low functionality component

20. functionality

21. the combined mapping introvert extrovert functionality

22. introvert extrovert functionality design art each creation is somewhere on the art-design continuum relatively unconstrained creativity rules expressing/freedom complexity economical factors risk and opportunity innovation

23. Shimon Shmueli, Touch360 +1.919.610.9384 [email_address] © Shimon Shmueli & Touch360. All Rights Reserved. Thank you.