Emotional Form Design Methodology
It might seem that something that produces such concrete objects in the world as the act of design would involve an abundance of metrics, science and predicated structure. We might also say that people design to meet the needs of society. The design is only involved in making up for some lack that exists within the communal infrastructure. I would argue that the judge of design and its value to the public is an emotional one.
I would say that people who design and people who experience design do so immediately on an emotional level. The experience is similar to meeting someone for the first time. You either like them or not. You can often learn to appreciate them as you discover those elements of their personality that were not so obvious when first introduced. You can also find more and more things to support your dislike. However the progression occurs, the initial response is emotional. How else could it occur?
Our experience is taken in through our senses and funneled through our emotional channels. We are wired to experience and decide quickly. Our lives depend on it. We experience color, texture, shape, motion, contextual presentation, and blend it in to our present emotional state. Could we not just suspend our judgment for a brief time in order to best experience a design and evaluate it based on its merits and lacking elements? We could if we knew it was coming. This is what happens when someone asks us to justify, qualify and quantify our judgment of a design. This is when our training, experience, science, metrics and quantitative analysis comes to bear. When we are safe and have already determined that something does not threaten, offend, or challenge us directly, we can act from a position of quantitative analysis.
I would offer that during the design process we are emotionally driven to balance, placate, and meet undefined needs that exist in our minds. Each step and stroke of the pencil shapes what is to come next. Each stroke is judged as being ‘right’ or not. You know it as soon as you finish the stroke and receive the response in your body. Each strike of the chisel, each brush stroke, each regeneration of the model, and every session that we sit down to design. There is something about each part in context that must be ‘right’ and builds to the whole that is a ‘good’ design.
How many scraps of paper are in the waste basket or recycle bin? How many times do you start from scratch? Why? Is it inspiration or did you feel that the design just didn’t feel right? You are trying to answer with your design hundreds of unasked questions in the form of psycho-psomatic response mechanisms. Is it really wrong to design this way? Is it really counter to all your training and experience? I would say that emotional design is the only way to find design that strikes a chord with other people. How can people relate to metrics and structure? They relate through the response of the designer as another person.
A design finds its proper place when it finds its proper context. Putting a ship designed for water in the desert where no water exists defeats the design. Having an understanding how the design would impact you and others is key to developing an emotional link and empathic conduit between designer and user. Know where, how, and why a particular design is going to be used. Also, getting an opportunity to receive tactile feedback from a prototype, visual-spatial response from a mock-up, and emotional satisfaction from using a design successfully will all contribute to present and future design success.
Design is a form of expression that encompasses the entire human experience. It is physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual, and communal. Design let’s other people experience parts of who we are that are not obvious when we first meet them. People are rich, complex and ever-changing. Our design should not be any less. Let your emotion, experience and metrics empower your design.
