Decoding Design

— An engineer's perspective.

My first interaction with design came as a young boy who found solace in silence, roaming across silent streets amidst mother nature.

Everything around me inspired me, but the thing that caught the attention of my eyes was the great designs of creatures around me like the ‘spider web’ — I mean I was astonished to see how a spider knew that, the circular axisymmetric shape will have that much strength. No doubt it inspired many Engineers and architects for the “bridge cable” system a perfect — ‘biomimicry’.

These designs intrigued me enough towards this amazing “field of design”.

Being an engineering graduate I had to sit for many placement interviews, I observed many of the candidates came with pale resumes without any good format or color. Many of them even had the same template as the “cyber cafe wale bhaiya” only cared to change the photos and basic details.

An interview which could have been a life-changing thing was most of the time a victim of “bad design”.

Resumes Engineers Have

This incident made me more vigilant towards the “concept of design” in terms of “good design” and “bad design”.

In my Pursuit of learning design, I happen to read an article by “Dieter Rams” where he talked about 10 principles for good design.

I learnt that a good design must be useful, innovative, long-lasting, fulfilling, easy to understand, minimalistic in nature, eco-friendly and show respect towards the user.

After all these learnings when I started observing things around me I could easily identify good designs & bad designs.

Let us now explore some designing marvels & errors through these examples —

A good design must be expressive.

Mouse in the house

So can you spot the designing error?

• Well, both are solving the purpose at the user end.
• But, when it comes to brand identity only one wins the race.
• Choosing the right color in designing your product is important.
• Brand Identity is important for a business.

A tool we all must have at our home.

Sil Batta

The Grinding Stone

• Talking about ecofriendly designs let’s meet my mom’s best friend that not only gives us luscious sauces owing to its engraved lines but also keeps electricity bill & calories in check.
• The sheer aroma it imparts to the most simplest of chutneys is just over the top.

Made up of clay, aesthetic.

Gullak

The Best way to save money.

• When it comes to money most of us have poor saving skills thanks to the pigi banks available in the market with an opening hole which lures us to take out the money easily aiding poor saving skills & acts as a big loophole in design.
• Kuddos to this smartly designed “Gullak” where money can’t travel its way back without breaking it.
• Eco-friendly & honest design.

Good designs last long.

Nana Ji Ka Phone

Not smart yet best.

• A good design varies from user to user, and in this era of smartphone this featured phone became my NanaJi’s partner.
• This is the magic of simplistic & minimalistic design, he can easily make calls, set alarms, even use it as a torch and the battery backs up for a week nearly.

A must-have product after this pandemic experience.

रोगाणु Killers

Our daily-used Liquid Cleaners.

• Innovation makes the design better.
• The 1st cleaner has a center opening, a designing fault which spills the liquid while use.
• 2nd container has a cornered opening which minimizes the spilling (innovative).
• 3rd container again has a corner opening with a very small hole(smart).

Comfort & better user experience make a design good.

A curious case of comfort.

Earbuds by Oneplus.

• Both buds come from the same brand but the brand missed their logo in the 1st design.
• The issue I faced with the 1st design was it created pain in my ears after long hours of indulgence .
• But a little innovation in 2nd design in the form of silicone buds made my experience pain free .
• An honest and user friendly design indeed.

So again coming back to the point, whether a design is Good or Bad ? Well, it will vary from user to user experience.

I urge you to explore your surroundings, are you able to differentiate between good designs & bad designs? And, if you find something feel free to comment below.

Lastly, I would conclude this article in the words of Michael Pollan —

Design in nature is but a concatenation of accidents, culled by natural selection until the result is so beautiful or effective as to seem a miracle of purpose.