more about design

What is design? Design is one of those concepts in art that's difficult to run to ground, but that accomplished artists and designers have a keen sense of. The idea of design in art is related to (and is a special sense of) the generic concept of design.

A design is:

• An outline, sketch, or plan, as of the form and structure of a work of art.
• The organization or structure of formal elements in a work of art; composition.
• A basic scheme or pattern that affects and controls function or development, as the overall design of an epic poem.
• The combination of details or features of a picture.
• The pattern or motif of an artistic work.
• A graphic representation, especially a detailed plan for construction or manufacture.
• An ornamental pattern. pr a design for a new process.
• The purposeful or inventive arrangement of parts or details, for example, the aerodynamic design of an automobile, or furniture of simple but elegant design.

To design is to:

• To plan and fashion the form and structure of a work of art.
• To prepare the preliminary sketch or the plans for a work to be executed.
• Intend for a definite purpose.
• To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner.
• To form or conceive in the mind; contrive; plan.
• To mark out, as by a sign.
• To make drawings, preliminary sketches, or plans.

About Design in Fine Arts vs. Design in the not so Fine Arts

Who can look at a Matisse and not be struck by its proportion, disproportion, perspective, balance, color, and dynamic tension? Matisse's painting is an outstanding example of the use of design in the painterly Fine Arts. In this field, design is characterized by the special ways that color, stroke, or texture are used to paint forms and images. As distinguished from design in other visual arts, painterly technique stresses the use of color or tonal relations rather than raw contours or lines as the means by which to render a design.

Who can look at an airplane or racing car and not be struck by feeling that a designer has been at work? But in commercial and industrial arts, design tends to be rendered differently than in the Fine Arts. In the commercial and industrial arts, designs usually show themselves as compositions, patterns, or motifs. Lines and contours play a much bigger role in creating these effects. As a result, designs tend to be blunter, less subtle.

Both kinds of design—Fine Art and Design Art—can generate beauty and stimulate thought, each in its own setting, each in its own way.

the power of design

Why does Design seem to exert so powerful a force over us? Ask yourself the following questions and examine the answers you come up with:

• What is the source of the beauty in a work of Fine Art? In a work of commercial art?
• Are the same artistic forces and principles operating in all cases, despite their apparent differences?
• Can the design of a product be an instance of Fine Art? Can a work of art successfully decorate an industrial or commercial product?
• Does good Fine Art design have to be the result of a conscious process? Does good commercial art design have to be the result of a conscious process?
• Ancient man was unschooled in the arts. What was the source of his pre-literate graphic imagery?
• Are high quality industrial art, commercial art, and architecture Fine Art?
• Is architecture a Fine Art even though it is an engineering discipline?
• Are inspired industrial engineering designs, graphic designs, and buildings nothing more than Fine Art constrained by economics, packaging, space, and engineering?
• Are accomplished and successful industrial engineers, graphics designers, and architects artists in the same sense as Matisse and Rembrandt are artists?
• What is the connection (if any) between the artistic design principles at work in a Matisse and those at work in the design of a symbol like a flag or a mandala?
• If a fine arts painter like Duchamp or Klimt were to paint a Smiley into one of his paintings, would that make him a designer?
• If an architect like Wright or Gherry were to design a museum to hang pictures painted by Duchamp and Klimt, would that make him a fine artist?
• Is the commissioned mural by Diego Rivera on the lobby wall of Rockefeller Center an example of commercial art or Fine Art?