What is design?
Design is planning a thing, image, space or system on purpose so that it does a job for people. Art can exist only to express a feeling; design always has a user and a purpose. The word covers both the plan (a drawing, model or prototype) and the finished result.
Design changed with history: hand-made crafts, then mass production in factories after the Industrial Revolution, then schools like the Bauhaus that joined art and industry, and today digital and sustainable design.
Fields of design
- Product (industrial) design: objects people use, from spoons to bicycles and phones.
- Graphic (communication) design: posters, logos, signs, packaging, books, information graphics.
- Fashion and textile design: clothes, accessories, fabric patterns.
- Interior design: inside spaces: layout, furniture, light, colour.
- Landscape design: parks, gardens, school grounds, paths and planting.
- Architecture: buildings and how people move through them.
- Digital and UX design: apps, websites, games; how easy and pleasant they are to use.
- Decorative-applied art: crafts that decorate useful objects (pottery, block printing, metalwork).
Form and function
Form is how a thing looks and feels: shape, colour, texture, material, size. Function is what it does. The phrase "form follows function" means the shape should grow out of the job. A good design is useful (works), usable (easy), safe and pleasing (aesthetics).
Designers use elements (line, shape, colour, texture, space) and principles (balance, proportion, contrast, rhythm, unity). Simple geometric figures (circles, squares, triangles) repeated, rotated or scaled make patterns, logos and tiles.
Ergonomics fits objects to the body using body measurements: seat height, handle size, text size on a sign.
Inclusive and sustainable design
Inclusive (universal) design means designing so that as many people as possible can use a thing without special help: wheelchair users, older people, children, people with low vision or hearing loss, left-handed people. Examples: ramps and lifts, lever door handles, large high-contrast text, captions, tactile paving, simple icons.
Sustainable design uses less material and energy, chooses safe and recyclable materials, makes things last and easy to repair, and plans for reuse at the end of life.
Key formulas and definitions
- Design = user + need + planned solution
- Form (looks) + function (works) = good design
- Elements: line, shape, colour, texture, space
- Principles: balance, proportion, contrast, rhythm, unity
- Good seat height ≈ 0.25 × body height (a rule of thumb)
Worked examples
1. Name the field of design for each: a metro map, a school uniform, a water bottle, a playground.
Metro map → graphic (information) design; uniform → fashion and textile design; bottle → product design; playground → landscape design.
2. A student is 140 cm tall. Using the rule of thumb, what seat height suits them?
0.25 × 140 = 35 cm. A seat much higher makes the feet hang; much lower lifts the knees.
3. A library sign uses thin grey letters on a white wall. Improve it using inclusive design.
Use large, bold letters in a dark colour on a light background (high contrast), add a simple icon, place it at eye level for both standing and seated people, and add Braille or a tactile version.
Common mistakes
- Thinking design means only decoration. Design must first do its job.
- Designing only for yourself. Ask who the users are and test with them.
- Choosing a beautiful form that hurts function (a handle too thin to hold).
- Treating inclusive design as an extra for a few people. It helps everyone (a ramp helps prams and suitcases too).