I have not finished a design course.. in fact, I have never even started one, however more and more design is becoming a passion of mine and I like to think that my current vocation (which I now term as software design) means I was in design all along.

And perhaps I was

Today I came across, in a  magazine from the financial review, a glossy review of a bunch of products primarily aimed at the office market. Beautifully 'designed' items of form and function, in so far as they do something and look nice. One caught my eye particularly, a rock covered in orange calfskin leather masquarading as a paperweight.

I mean, seriously. It was Louis Sullivan who coined the phrase 'form ever follows function' ... often taken to mean that both are important but ask any user of a product.. if something doesn't do what it was supposed to do then how nice it looks counts for nothing. I like the way Chris Farley put it in Tommy Boy..(paraphrased) ... I could take a dump in a box and put a guaranteed sticker on it and it will still be a guaranteed piece of shit

Ok, so back to the rock. Today's question (recurring theme in the blog btw, I've been told I jump into solution mode to quickly) is have we lost the balance between function and form in the current world of product design?# ... and I ask this question across the many modes of design

I heard a prognosis of apple's design being 'good design is when there is nothing left to take away' .. in reference to the simplicity of the ipod. From my reading of it the form part of that equation is maintaining the aesthetics WHILE stripping back that which is not required to achieve the function. Anything else is art for arts sake*.

I'm pretty sure the rock could do without the leather.

*Before I get a rise out of all this, I'm a big fan of art for arts sake.. but not when it's passed off as 'design'.

# I plan to do a lot more writing about this topic but happy to admit I'm not anywhere near qualified to have .. well, a qualified opinion on the topic. This is merely an opening salvo, shot in part to get some input from you as well.