Reading Response 1

Reading Response #1
to Artful Design • Chapter 1: “Design Is ______”

Nazar Khan
27-9-26
Music 256A / CS476a, Stanford University

Reading Response: ?

From this week's reading, I'd like to respond to Artful Design Principle 1.6, which states:

• 
  Principle 1.6: Design is an interplay between function and form.

— where function is what a thing is and form is how a thing is.

I used to think of myself as someone who solely focused on the function of objects and nothing else. I don’t really care about the aesthetic of things that look incredibly polished like an expensive car or other everyday products. Over last year, I’ve realized that what I was looking for was not necessarily the rejection of form or aestheticism while in fact what I was looking for was a form in itself. The aesthetic I was going for was one of “MacGyverism”, for example using a modified Compaq Portable for classwork or getting around campus in a Yugoslavian car. I think it fully explains how an object’s form is contextualizing its function. A Yugo is just a car with just about nothing available to you – no air conditioning, no RPM gauge, the front seats are identical. But that’s also what tells you that it’s something solely to get you from point A to B and nothing more. There’s a certain charm to that which can’t be completely ascertained from its function which can be achieved more from hindsight than anything else since it is an objectively terrible car to drive and to own. It was considered one of the 50 worst cars of all time by Time for a reason. Even then, it is its own statement since bad publicity is still publicity – bad form is still a form and even notable at best. It was simply designed in that way to achieve its price point, making it a very honest example of form following function compared to something like a luxury car. The zipper pencil bag is something that excites and wows from exceeding its functionality, connecting form with something that is beautiful and sublime but the Yugo falls just about or less than what is expected, and that failure itself is a form.