Big Projects can mean big budgets so the rewards can be financial too Nick Hayes of Identikal has been involved in serveral such projects,including a prestigious Ted Baker storefront and interior graphic work for a flagship Los Angeles store.”I think the best aspect of non- traditional work is that you are entering foreign ground .Where you are so used to working in a specific way from day to day.these projects really do break up the typical workflow and bring a lot of positive problem to what your are normally used to.We tend to enjoy these projects more than our usual work,so we jump at the chance to get them.”

@Nubloo –

(…)But to make more out of these possibilities, you have to be a designer at heart and soul, not just a guy with Photoshop.

I love the way you’ve put it.

I sometimes ask myself what some people think – they have a computer and a version of Photoshop or Illustrator, and they throw some bits and fragments together and call it design.

You need more than a computer to be a designer, it’s just a tool. It opens up nearly endless possibilities. But to make more out of these possibilities, you have to be a designer at heart and soul, not just a guy with Photoshop.

Also, when it comes to web design, it would be rather pointless to try and design the whole thing on a paper. How can you ever put together a working layout without the specialized web design tools available on computers?

And you got the glory…

It is true! The glory always go to the one who have done the thing that makes it different from the rest, no matter if it is small or big.

I have designed many things. Easy things were created in my head, tougher things were scribbled on legal pads, impossible things were -gasp!- worked out with calculators, colored pencils and graph paper.

To me, the process of design IS an art. In fact, I might go so far as to say that design is an end to itself!

Have you ever had flights of fancy, when it came to developing a piece of software? Everything works in this fantasy, because you designed it to. Sadly, bringing these wild things to life may fail due to lack of practical knowledge.

But, in the old days, you would just send your idea down to the programmers. These poor saps didn’t have a creative bone in their bodies, but they knew how to turn your design into working software.

And you got the glory…

Mitch

Anyway, although the title was a little too provokative, you are certainly right about one thing. The amount of technical work to render a design piece can be too high for a human to complete it.

As the creative process is continuous, you don’t only design before producing, you also design while rendering, so this speed up really matters.

Yet, as Win Crouvel said, the computer itself can’t make your design better, it can only help you lift the technical burden and free you from it.

But as design is concerned I don’t think there is any possibility that computers will make humans unnecessary in the future.

Design is different from Art and while I strongly struggle to accept the idea that a computer can make art (which is different from saying a computer can’t be used as a tool for that) I don’t think a computer can’t produce design elements by itself by following mathematical parameters, in fact we use tools like these all the time with great results.

The only thing being that the person behind the computer becomes an operator rather than a designer.

I think the point is that changing the parameters on the program you will need conscious human intervention that can only come from a creative mind (rather than a computer) processing this info.

By the way, I didn’t know Dwell but I liked it, could you point that particular article you mentioned? I couldn’t find it.

However, in order to do anything well, we have to know our history and evolution of the process. So yes, if you were to take away the computers, what could you design? Personally, I still draw better on paper than on a Wacom.

…the sense of design should come from within the person, and when all else fails, the design should come to existence by means of simple pencil and paper.

Right! Design is not about tools, is about thoughs, pencils and mice are among the tools available, and it is interesting to see there is space for even much different stuff.

Take for instance Henri Matisse’s experiments with colours. Roughly speaking he didn’t wanted colour to be second best to shapes so he painted first and shaped later, so he used scissors instead of pencils.

Even though Matisse was a painter and not a designer I think the comparison is rather fair.

I agree that computers are a great tool and they allow for speedy delivery. But the sense of design should come from within the person, and when all else fails, the design should come to existence by means of simple pencil and paper.

:: efrain

And sometimes the same things about computers that make the act of creation faster and more easy… are the same things that sometimes get in the way.

Very true, sometimes is just too easy to be distracted with the many possibilities a computer offers these days.

That would deserve a post on its own, maybe even a blog on its own… see, I’m getting distracted already…

On that point, I think if Win Crouvel don’t use computers as fast as he would like, at least I think he doesn’t get as distracted as we, computer geeks. It is a trade-off, certainly.