By Shrinivas Vaidya
Dear Friends,
Whenever I think of any design, be it interior design or productdesign, a few things very naturally come up in my mind. Theseare in the form of questions.
The best part is, answers to these questions can give rise to avery successful design in itself. Let's see how.
If I am planning to design a piece of furniture, let's say adouble bed, immediate I start relating to what I already knowabout double beds, some picture/image I have already seen,something I have seen in some furniture shop, etc... Then Istart thinking about what material I should think about, thebudget, dimensions, age group of people who are going to use it,etc... If you answer these questions one by one on a paper, youwill get a blueprint of the design process, so that you canconvert in into technical drawings, with all the joinery detailsand finally the product.
Amongst above mentioned questions some are directly related tofunction of the double bed as a piece of furniture.
What does this mean?
When I ask myself, what should be the dimensions of a doublebed? I have very little freedom to decide the dimensions of thebed, because there are certain norms to be followed in order toserve it's basic function and that's comfort.
But what if I say that I will keep the overall surface area ofthe bed same , but make it round in plan. Will it be ok..
Now here I am trying to achieve both function and aesthetics,without sacrificing the comfort of the person who will use it.So during any design process there will be times when thedesigner need to take some decisions where he has to keep asidehis wildest ideas and pay attention to function first.
That's why the true success of an interior design project is agood balance between function and aesthetics.
Expressing this kind of balance through design is not an easytask, because function is universally accepted, but aesthetics,not always.
What does this mean?
Beauty is always relative. A washbasin has a common universalfunction of an appliance to be used for washing hands, but it'sbeauty is relative. What is beautiful for me, might not holdtrue for you.
So a design expression can have a unique style of the designerhimself. It is possible that the designer is more comfortablewith certain kinds of materials/finishes/color schemes, etc..which can reflect in his designs.
In spite of these personal touches a good designs always catersthe needs of the user first. A good designer has a certain kindof convincing power in his/her style which he uses to expressesin the design without sacrificing the likes/dislikes of the user.
There are designers who are more comfortable in designing only acertain kind space such as bathrooms, bedrooms, living rooms,public spaces such as restaurants, clubs, gymnasiums.
Of course this is entirely of a personal choice, but there isthis same message in their designs, shell out your ego anddesign for the best parameters with worst possibilities takeninto considerations. This is what gives birth to a great design.
I hope this article was helpful.
Copyright 2005 Shrinivas Vaidy
Article Source: www.ArticlesBase.com
