Designer Massimo Vignelli on Intellectual Elegance, Education, and Love

Iconic Designer Massimo Vignelli on Intellectual Elegance, Education, and Love | Brain Pickings.

Here is another side to the recurring theme User Focus vs. Superstar Designer. Like other Italian designers, for example Verganti, Vignelli is definitely on the side of the superstars, but he brings it very persuasively. Something to think about!

Read more in the books How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer about Vignelli or Design-Driven Innovation by Verganti.

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Manifesto: the Scientist, the Designer and the Craftsman

There is an interesting kind of tension between the disciplines of science, design and craftsmanship, especially where consumer products are the subject. In this manifesto, I take up a position on how being a designer relates to being a craftsman or scientist, and why neither one is the other.

Schematic Overview of GUI

Overview of Things Done and Things To Do

So let’s see what my progress has been like these last months, and what is still to do. For the full process you’ll have to read the whole blog though 🙂 , click for the archives of Feb, Mar, and Apr 2012.

• wk 1: General research
• wk 2: Concept development
• wk 3: Literature research (*to do: edit & publish), user research, concept scenario
• wk 4: User research, midterm exhibition
• wk 5 – 7: Processing research, deciding on concept and realization, conclusion of research, reflection on process
• wk 8: Interaction design, prototype preparations, draft report

Today >>

• wk 9: Prototype building, GUI design
• wk 10: Prototype building, GUI design, user evaluation
• wk 11: Final report, final user evaluation
• wk 12: Final exhibition, extra user evaluation

Interaction Schematic

This is an app for smartphones that enables Light Scribing at entry-level. The app encourages sharing and working together with friends and could lead to a feeling of competence in users while using it. Here is how it works schematically:

By ‘Frankenstein’ prototype, I mean that I will assemble existing devices to mimic the functionality of my application. For example, instead of trying to hack a cellphone or tablet to be able to modify its camera, I use a normal digital camera with an Eye-Fi memory card, that sends the image instantly and wirelessly to an iPad.

Design and Research

Ever since I moved from product design to studying Master of Industrial Design, I have been in love with research. So I decided: I want to go into ‘Design Research’. But what is design research? Ever helpful Rob Tieben provided me with a clue, in the form of this little list of four ways to do design research:

• design for research
• research for design
• design through research
• research through design