universal principles of design
May 11th 2010 05:55
Original Creative Writing:
.rockpub.com
universal principles of design
When dealing with human beings it is good to have some ideas how best to do so. This is where Universal Principles of Design really delivers.
This is a book for the creative kid who is hard to buy for. It would be a cool tome out of the blue for some creative young mind, there is nothing too adult as such, although the photograph of a burn survivor is a little scary.
To illuminate and realise thought in order to communicate, particularly grand creative thought, this is a challenge many people spend their careers wrestling with. To come to grips with these ideas early-on would probably lead one on to greater productivity in some ways. I can see how this book Universal Principles of Design would offer some useful language and concepts for the young designer or creative mind.
Universal Principles of Design
William Lidwell
Kritina Holden
Jill Butler
Foreword by Kimberly Elam
Revised and updated with twenty-five additional design principles added since the 2003 edition.
What a curiously helpful book this is; there are more than one hundred and twenty-five design principals in circulation, and the authors are quick to point that out; The concepts in this book, broadly referred to as principles consist of laws, guidelines and human biases, and general design considerations. The principals were selected from a variety of design disciplines based on several factors, including utility, degree of misuse or misunderstanding, and strength of supporting evidence
Lots of good information is provided, and these principles all reflect on the creative process with some resonance. Like reminders or sign-posts they assist in the essential process of creativity; the design of the process surrounding the outcome.
If I say I am informed by my process, I mean there has been something in the way I have worked (and created my outcome) that has made what I am trying to do become refined in a particular way. It has set a convention for me based on a principle I've either discovered or possibly invented.
Having differing points of view really assists a work in progress I think, so a book like this is very useful to the ensemble, the group who wish to create ways of approaching their work, be it corporeal or design based; it offers so many entry points into a subject. I can recall many a dance company using combinations here of principles such as Highlighting (bringing attention to an area of text or image) and the Red Effect (the perception that men wearing red are more dominant etc) for example, so I can also imagine a choreographer going head over heels for a book like this that brings so many really useful design principles together; likewise a writer or a designer, anyone looking at a career in ideas. Advertising, enterprise, interior design, social planning, customer relations, all sorts of areas that involve communication.
It would be unusual for a playwright not to think in some way about Constraint - a method of limiting the actions that can be performed on a system; Cognitive Dissonance - a tendency to seek consistency among attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs; Classical Conditioning - a technique used to associate a stimulus with an unconscious physical or emotional response; Archetypes - universal patterns of theme and form; (even) Hick's Law - the time it takes to make a decision increases as the number of alternatives increases; as they were thinking through a story.
I do not suggest this is a particular formula that all playwrights would use - simply that these considerations would come into play so to speak, in the thinking through of the idea. What I am attempting to say is this book is very stimulating in the sense that it has so much practical thinking in it.
It introduces good ideas and insights that are worthy of some consideration when trying to devise something on a creative level. Now if I were strictly a designer I would probably find these things just as useful, but being more of an arts practitioner, a play maker, they get me excited because they also provide language.
As I said already, entry points; language and communication is ultimately the best way to develop work in a group - a book like this introduces ways of discussing something from a particular perspective; it provides ways of identifying experience or attempting to simulate experience, press buttons in people.
Great stuff to work with.
David Jobling
When dealing with human beings it is good to have some ideas how best to do so. This is where Universal Principles of Design really delivers.
This is a book for the creative kid who is hard to buy for. It would be a cool tome out of the blue for some creative young mind, there is nothing too adult as such, although the photograph of a burn survivor is a little scary.
To illuminate and realise thought in order to communicate, particularly grand creative thought, this is a challenge many people spend their careers wrestling with. To come to grips with these ideas early-on would probably lead one on to greater productivity in some ways. I can see how this book Universal Principles of Design would offer some useful language and concepts for the young designer or creative mind.
William Lidwell
Kritina Holden
Jill Butler
Foreword by Kimberly Elam
Revised and updated with twenty-five additional design principles added since the 2003 edition.
What a curiously helpful book this is; there are more than one hundred and twenty-five design principals in circulation, and the authors are quick to point that out; The concepts in this book, broadly referred to as principles consist of laws, guidelines and human biases, and general design considerations. The principals were selected from a variety of design disciplines based on several factors, including utility, degree of misuse or misunderstanding, and strength of supporting evidence
Lots of good information is provided, and these principles all reflect on the creative process with some resonance. Like reminders or sign-posts they assist in the essential process of creativity; the design of the process surrounding the outcome.
If I say I am informed by my process, I mean there has been something in the way I have worked (and created my outcome) that has made what I am trying to do become refined in a particular way. It has set a convention for me based on a principle I've either discovered or possibly invented.
Having differing points of view really assists a work in progress I think, so a book like this is very useful to the ensemble, the group who wish to create ways of approaching their work, be it corporeal or design based; it offers so many entry points into a subject. I can recall many a dance company using combinations here of principles such as Highlighting (bringing attention to an area of text or image) and the Red Effect (the perception that men wearing red are more dominant etc) for example, so I can also imagine a choreographer going head over heels for a book like this that brings so many really useful design principles together; likewise a writer or a designer, anyone looking at a career in ideas. Advertising, enterprise, interior design, social planning, customer relations, all sorts of areas that involve communication.
It would be unusual for a playwright not to think in some way about Constraint - a method of limiting the actions that can be performed on a system; Cognitive Dissonance - a tendency to seek consistency among attitudes, thoughts, and beliefs; Classical Conditioning - a technique used to associate a stimulus with an unconscious physical or emotional response; Archetypes - universal patterns of theme and form; (even) Hick's Law - the time it takes to make a decision increases as the number of alternatives increases; as they were thinking through a story.
I do not suggest this is a particular formula that all playwrights would use - simply that these considerations would come into play so to speak, in the thinking through of the idea. What I am attempting to say is this book is very stimulating in the sense that it has so much practical thinking in it.
It introduces good ideas and insights that are worthy of some consideration when trying to devise something on a creative level. Now if I were strictly a designer I would probably find these things just as useful, but being more of an arts practitioner, a play maker, they get me excited because they also provide language.
As I said already, entry points; language and communication is ultimately the best way to develop work in a group - a book like this introduces ways of discussing something from a particular perspective; it provides ways of identifying experience or attempting to simulate experience, press buttons in people.
Great stuff to work with.
David Jobling
| 83 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
David Jobling
