Reflection from Class 11-1-07

Reflection of Thursday's lecture.

The concept of visual literacy has been a major area of interest for me as a designer. Reading symbols and understanding their meanings play a vital role in what our profession is about. I approach design with a reflection of the client's self. This self image usually has a symbol attached to it. I focus in on reading these visual clues and then deconstruct them into the elements necessary to create my design solution. The concepts describe, analyze, interpret, evaluate and act should be natural parts of the design process. Symbols were originally used to speak to the populations when most were unable to read written words. They could however read the images and symbols. These images described things in detail. Can we as designers truly understand the rich histories our world if we deny ourselves the language of visual literacy?

Another topic in today's lecture was the issue of place having meaning. The thought that space not having meaning never occurred to me, but the thought that space had meaning only because someone adds meaning to it also never occurred to me before. Spaces are defined by what occurs within them, and places are defined or are given meaning by the actions or values people put upon them. I wish to do more research on this topic. Hopefully, I will find it enlightening.

One last topic discussed in class today was the concept of evidence based design. Evidence based design uses research to justify the final design solution. This approach is done often in health care facilities, hotels, prisons, etc. Some feel that evidence based design allows for a solid solution to be developed. Others feel that evidence based design takes one possible proven solution and then applies it to similar but different applications. This in turns create 'cookie cutter' designs that then fail to truly meet the end-users specific needs. I feel evidence based design has a place within our profession. It allows us to create specific solutions to specific problems. However, we must never allow one solution to be viewed as the only solution. We must view every design as it is intended, unique and original.