Design is all around you

What is your objective when starting a new product, business, or project?

What is your objective when starting a new product, business, or project? In fact, a design refers to the plan for achieving that objective. Color, shape, technology, and function each are means of realizing this objective. It is because people always play a central role in design that it has the power to bring progress to society. We consider good designs to be things that truly enrich people’s lives or have the potential to do so.

Changing definitions of design

The meanings of words change gradually with the times. The word “design” is no exception. It’s said that the word first came into widespread use at the start of the 20th century. Over roughly 100 years since then, the meaning of the word has changed gradually. Another characteristic of the word “design” is the fact that it has different meanings to different people.

For these reasons, the Japan Institute of Design Promotion (JDP), an organization intended to promote design in general and the organizer of the Good Design Award, felt the need to issue guidelines concerning our thinking about design. Accordingly, a brief description of our thinking about design is provided below.

Our thinking about design

It’s said that the word “design” comes from the Latin word designare. Designare is said to have meant to draw a plan. For this reason, it is thought that the word design initially was used in this sense of a plan on paper. In fact, the characters used to write the word for design in Chinese have this meaning.

In light of this historical background, one might think that anything planned on paper could be called design, but this would seem to leave out the most important subject of what is the essence, or the central feature, of contemporary design.

Just what is central to design? After years of working with design, it appeared to us that the answer was “people.” While we may refer to them as “users” or by the lofty term “society,” people always are a central concern when a designer plans something new. The designer asks him or herself the questions “What do people need? What should I design for them?” We consider this to be the core that is of utmost importance to the contemporary definition of design.

We consider design to consist of the series of processes of thinking constantly about people most of all, identifying objectives, and planning ways to achieve them. We believe that what is realized as a result of this process is one design solution.

Design of products and services

One topic that is brought up often these days about design concerns the design of products and services. Since we think of design as we defined it above, the Good Design Award accepts entries for both products and services. But sometimes we are asked if mixing the two does not lead to confusion. We’d like to take this opportunity to spell out our guidelines on this subject.

Products and services often are discussed in binary opposition to each other. This is true not only in design but in other areas as well. This reflects the binary opposition between tangibles and intangibles. But we believe that when talking about design it might be better to think of products and services in a slightly different way. In the case of design, we think that the difference between products and services is a difference of focus. A product is a means of achieving a service, and a service is an objective. We believe that this is the difference between products and services. For example, the Sony Walkman was a big hit around the world at one time. Viewed as a product, the Walkman was a portable music player, but beyond that one could discern the objective of being able to listen to music while walking around. That was the service. Providing the portable music player made it possible to achieve this service. This is how products and services are related.

So what do you think the designers designed in this case? We believe that they designed both a product and a service. Or more accurately, we could interpret this as a case of using a product as a means of designing a service. When considering this example in screening of the Good Design Award, we would look first at the appropriateness of the service and then at the appropriateness of the product in light of that service. In other words, we believe that instead of separating products and services in design we should continue to look constantly at both, without regard for their tangible or intangible status, because the product itself is a means to an end.

The difference between design and engineering

When discussing design, one topic that comes up often is the difference between design and engineering. Although this is a difficult question, we would like to state some simple guidelines here. The question often comes up of whether NANOPASS 33, a hypodermic needle for insulin injection that won the Good Design Grand Award in 2005, is an example of design or engineering. Often it is said that since this product can be described briefly as a pain-free hypodermic needle it should not be considered a case of design. However, the ultimate goal beyond the pain-free concept is the user. That is, the criteria for evaluation of a design are based on the user’s point of view. Even development of an extremely thin hypodermic needle would not have achieved this goal if it still felt painful to the user, so that the topic that must be kept in mind at all times in developing such a product is what kind of form to use to eliminate pain. In other words, it can be described as a design in light of our definition of the term because the ultimate objective is the user. An example of the opposite case in which a work could not be said to be a design would be a computer CPU intended to deliver 1.25 times the processing speed of a previous model. Since its goal is merely to increase speed by 1.25 times, it does not qualify as design. While of course many users would benefit from the increased speed, as long as the sole objective is to increase speed it can be interpreted as not qualifying as a design.

But this does not mean that any work for which the user is the ultimate objective is not a work of engineering. Such cases may be interpreted as being cases of both design and engineering. One point becomes clear when thinking about the topic from this point of view. It is that since the demarcation between what is and is not design is found in the purpose, or process, it is not possible to determine whether or not something is a design by looking at the finished product alone. Put another way, what the creators had in mind can be considered essential in judging whether an object qualifies as design. In the process of screening for the Good Design Award, applicants are asked to prepare numerous documents on subjects such as their intents and objectives. They also take part in screening interviews in which judges speak with them directly. This is because in screening a design it is essential to understand its goals and the process of how these goals were thought about and realized.