BLOG POST 3
WHAT IS DESIGN?
Okay I’m going to have to admit this reading was incredibly hard for me to get through. While interesting, the matter of fact tone in the reading was quite off-putting. I understand where the author was coming from, saying that the cavemen figuring out they can use their hands as a drinking device created the ladle and then created vessels as we know them but also including clothing but it felt a little ridiculous and far fetched. Makes sense, for sure, but I do not understand why the author felt the need to talk about all of that for 4 pages. I usually am not the one to rag on people or their works but seriously, what is the sentence, “The concept of design…was the backlash of aesthetic sensibility against the dullness and immaturity lurking in the industrial mechanism that was so violently changing man’s living environment” even supposed to be telling me? I will admit I find it quite interesting that these two dudes were in a way rebelling against the super machine/ mechanical era they lived in by trying to “revive” the era of craftspeople who actually possessed a manual skill instead of someone just standing next to a machine making sure it is doing its job. I think it is a bit biased that this author believes design came about just because of Ruskin and Morris. But now as I continue reading the author has decided that the first people to really accept the idea of design are the artists from Bauhaus in Germany who worked in molding plastics. I can see how a designer might have a deeper understanding of this article and find it to be more of a productive read but honestly I am just so lost in the author’s attempt at a creative writing approach to what seems to be stories of historical happenings leading up to what we consider design. It was pretty interesting to read about the different countries approaching design in their own ways and seeing design grow into something that can be personal to a country or a brand.