Transdisciplinary Design

What does it mean to be a designer? I am certainly the least qualified of my blogging peers to access what makes a good designer; but I have learned that, in the most simplified terms, the difference between a designer and me could be in process or approach.

This simple differentiation probably doesn’t limit itself to designers and non, but is linked to the reasons why people choose one discipline over another across fields. What makes math easier for the scientist and law easier for the philosopher? While I may have the capability to become a designer my qualifications and skills probably read more as a producer and that is what I am perceived as, in one capacity. This by no means limits the capability of a scientist to become a Lawyer or of a philosopher to become a Mathematician or even my own to become a Designer, but highlights our predisposition to think about solutions.

Working with the (rather large) assumption that all disciplines are based primarily in problem solving/resolving. A predisposition to solutions thinking can limit the spaces in which we choose to contribute and by which we choose to define ourselves. The spaces people intervene in define their capacity as a designer, or not. I can “design” a screenplay or set or scene, but I cannot design a cup . Or even if I could design a cup probably not as well as some of my peers. I can build the skills to design a better cup than anyone of my peer, but let’s be honest at that point I would call myself a cup designer and not a student. I can intervene in set design and screenwriting because I have the annoying habit of ruining perfectly good films with the flaws I can see in them but my peers may not be able to.

But I am digressing here by using my own examples. The reality is a designer can see a bowl in a coconut — I do not intend to limit design to a product based thinking, but merely use it as a tool for understanding process — and we can share that vision; just as a dancer can feel the rhythm in music while we have to learn the steps to a song; or a healer can tell you that you are having a heart attack and not just a panic attack. It does not limit me from acquiring those skills but I cannot say that I am predisposed to those ideas. My first thought when confronted with the idea of a coconut is what kind, so that I can access what island I am stranded on; or what mood does this music prescribe to this moment, not how can I move to it.

This does not mean the quality of work determines your title either, but rather that the instinct to create that work and the perspective individuality lends to it defines the approach and the title we prescribe to ourselves.