Design as Conversation

We talked about design as a conversation the very first day of class. Design in itself is a language and is used to express many different things. The main point is that the design is something that can be used! I'd like to make a formal declaration: I LOVE POST-ITs. They are one of the best things ever made up.


Design is often something that carries a message when it is seen (for me at least): why didn't I think of that? The person who thought up of making tiny pieces of paper sticky was a genius. Post-Its allow us to express ourselves through the design of this piece of paper. However, it just doesn't stop there. This innovation of a sticky pad only lead to more and more designs. Each design was more unique than the one before it, but it all had one thing in common: they used the simple piece of paper as a creative tool.



A new type of design and art was born from this other simple design: post-it art! This is mostly just images recreated with post-it notes instead of pencil or paint. But this adds an interesting thing back to design itself. Many people have recreated classic game characters with post-its. Since post-its are square in nature, it creates a pixel effect that really adds to the overall design itself.

It's pretty interesting to see how a simple design evolved into an ever evolving design of more and more complex art pieces. This is design as an expression and expression is language.

The two pictures on the left may be more complicated as the gaming language of nerds and the top is the written English language on post-it notes. But they both express a feeling or idea that creates a better design.

Design adds onto other designs. And those add on to more and more designs. That's why design is a never ending process.