Readings related to the design process
I borrowed some great books from the online library to give me more of an understanding as to what is important when designing a product. My favourite being, Design process; progress practice. With all the books that I read though, I quoted the parts I found the most interesting and would aid the development of my project.
Audience
"Better designed products can meet the changing needs of older people and still be attractive to younger consumers; they can open up new markets by offering older people independence and dignity and still attract younger people with good looks and functionality." (Peto, 1999, p.56)
"Quality is a significant fact here; older people are experienced consumers who do not want to waste money, but will spend it on products that offer them the right mix of functionality, quality and appearance." (Peto, 1999, p.56)
"Instead of paying a premium for good design, good design should ensure higher sales and more modest pricing: a virtuous circle from which produce and consumer both benefit." (Peto, 1999, p.56)
Sketching
"Creativity demands the ability to move back and forth between expansive thinking and close editing. Sketchbooks are an essential means by which designers catalog their thoughts. Without these notebooks, spontaneous observations that are often the origins of innovative thinking may be forgotten." (Skolos and Wedell, 2012, p.70)
"Making thumbnail sketches is a time-tested method of visual problem solving." (Skolos and Wedell, 2012, p.60)
Design
"Graphic designers who used to work with pencils, brushes, paper, card and cow-gum, now design on the screen." (Peto, 1999, p.82)
"The designers work is still essentially the same as it was twenty years ago. The real significance of the new technology is the effect it is having, or will have, on the way they are communicated, on the way they are sold. These are the changes that will make the designer think in a new and different way." (Peto, 1999, p.82)
"Like the last revolution this one is opening doors and closing others, bringing new opportunities and limitations. In the same way that the last revolution bought new fields of design and new forms of expression so has this one: fruit of the technology itself.... It has created the need for a new kind of designer." (Peto, 1999, p.83)
"The room is becoming a computer and the computer is becoming a room. The merging of physical and virtual space is exciting, but at the same time we want to be able to move fluently between information that is represented electronically and physically; for example between a projected display and a white-board. The designs of real and virtual information can be separate but linked." (Peto, 1999, p.98)
"Design is moving from a world where we were concerned primarily with objects with tangible artifacts to one where increasingly we're concerned with systems and less tangible artifacts. So as designers we have to develop tools for dealing with these intangibles." (Skolos and Wedell, 2012, p.14)
"Narrative helps to focus the design process. The story, with its conventional arcing structue form beginning to middle to end, is a holistic and universal form that is understood by all. The designer can employ this structural framework to craft a path for the reader/viewer." (Skolos and Wedell, 2012, p.89)
"Storytelling can provide the foundation for short or long, simple or complex messages and can be expressed through any medium-still or time-based, linear or nonlinear. Even a discrete moment can be taken from a narrative and translated into a powerful image." (Skolos and Wedell, 2012, p.89)
"The graphic design process is a constant exchange between uninhibited experimentation and careful judgement. Designers have various ways of facilitating a quick-ideally, uninterrupted-feedback loop between imagination and analysis. The computer's facility for quick iteration supports the development of an idea, allowing a designer to begin with one design configuration and then progressively build other arrangements." (Skolos and Wedell, 2012, p.138)
Typography
"Typography is possibly the most widespread of all the arts, but needs to be the most discreet. If the type distracts from the content, then it has failed." (Peto, 1999, p.109)
"The first priority of typography must be its readability. A successful page depends upon the balanced distribution of lights and darks, and thick or thin lines. Most of the recognition of a type takes place in the top half." (Peto, 1999, p.109)
"Each letter has its own essential nature. There is a borderline inside which a letter, for example, a B, can have many variations, even distortions, and yet still remain integrally a B. At some point, the borderline is crossed, and a letter ceases to be itself." (Peto, 1999, p.109)
"The problem with the creation of sans serif was that this reduction in differences risked increasing the similarities and making the overall type less legible." (Peto, 1999, p.111)
Programming
"The idea of putting down a little bit of code, getting something up and running...it feels like a sketch." (Skolos and Wedell, 2012, p.156)
Skolos, N. and Wedell, T., 2012. Graphic Design Process: From Problem To Solution : 20 Case Studies. London: Laurence King, pp. 14-156.
