Design grows within history

Design refers to the will to interpret the meaning of human life and existence through the process of making things. Art, on the other hand, is the act of discovering a fresh human spirit.

(...)

Art is an expression of an individual's will to society at large, one whose origin is very much of a personal nature. So only the artist know the source of his own world. This loftiness is what makes art so cool.

(...)

Design on the other hand, is basically not self-expression. Instead, it originates in society. The essence of design lies in the process of discovering a problem shared by many people and trying to solve it. Because the root of the problem is within the society, everyone can understand plans for solutions and processes for solving the problem, in addition to being able to see the problem from the designer's perspective. Design is appealing because the process creates inspiration that is engendered by this empathy among human beings in our common values and spirituality.

Kenya Hara, Designing Design, p. 24

-------------------------------------------------------------

Last week, I found a book written by Japanese Master graphic designer, Kenya Hara. So I immediately checked it out from the library. He certainly knows how to describe design issues to the very detail point that I wanted to say, but I couldn't. His writing helped me to clear my cloudy vision out. I really like and agree on how he differentiated between art and design, that art is subjectively and design is objectively understood in society.

So, here comes the cutting board again. First image is a cutting board exhibited at Smithsonian museum in DC. The other two are my old cutting board that I've used for summer. I have to admit that I was wrong when I said that current chopping board market doesn't have various design options(refer to my older post about a chopping board). Actually, it does have quite a few design options besides shape varieties; such as the way of manufacturing, and usage of different materials. So far,design isn't just about verifying the form.

Also, as you can see from pictures above, its rectangular shape has been proved by history, that it is somehow OK-design since it has survived for thousands of years.

However, I won't stop searching for better possibilities. I still believe there are the nature or behaviors of human being which haven't been recognized by designers or creators of tools whose waiting to be discovered and applied to objects. And those solutions might help to solve my problem: The world is full of unnecessary things which we think of them as necessities.