LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

The most immediate gratification we obtain from good design is Delight. Our reaction to visual stimuli is firstly and mostly visceral; our thoughts about the color blue, for example, are often preceded by our emotional response to it. We process our attraction or repulsion to it only after we have registered our knee-jerk response. Choosing a car, for instance, is a complex process, but color is a very important part of it. All things being equal, a cream-hued sedan can deliver the same performance and safety as the red one but it’s often the second that gets a second glance. There is a science that deals with people’s reaction to colors, and it makes clear our response is both physical, i.e., chemical and neural, as well as cultural. Designers know this and have capitalized on the outward elements of design with degrees of success. But this is far too easy. It has no hook. So, designers, with the help of a team of marketers, develop a story about the jaunty little red car that wins the race to some woman’s heart and on the way saves a lost little kitten and still had time to stop by the florist for a bunch of roses. Yes, the red ones. The designer may not even be in the picture at this point, his design a mere springboard for the narrative. The story is developed into an advertisement, millions of people see it, red car wins the round. D is for Design that Delivers stories. I’m currently reading Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things and having a good laugh – at the expense of bad design. Mr. Norman, of course, lent his name to the ‘Norman door’, the badly designed contraption that swivels, swings, and slides counter-intuitively. We all encounter similar examples every day: The numbers on an elevator that are arranged differently because the designer was convinced he should just ‘jazz it up!’ and willfully disregarded the fact that most of us read from left to right, top to bottom. Or, for people of my generation, the plastic shrink wrap on DVDs that were tougher than the Rubik’s cube to handle. Let’s go back to good Design. My personal favorite is Design makes problems Disappear, and may involve nothing more than adding a couple of centimeters to the handle of a coffee cup to make it easier to use. We don’t even realize the designer’s effort but it is there each time we bring the cup to our lips. That’s good design. We may even think it’s the Sumatra Mandheling that makes the experience singular and riveting. Okay, let’s stop there. Drinking coffee is never that riveting no matter what the marketing team says. It’s not saving lives or combatting the effects of climate change, it’s really just having a beverage. Get a grip.