Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Design Process:Stories

Similarities between Design Process and Stories

Have you ever thought of how the design process is in many ways similar to the creation of stories? Of course each of them require a train of thought, but when going further into the overall creation we see that there are many other similarities. You brainstorm ideas on paper whether they are sketches or words; Sketches that are used for design, and words to give you the essence of your story. When recording these ideas down on paper they give you a better understanding of what your concept will be.

Many times we express our ideas without thinking about the story they might create. When designing something, people often think of it as “just” a model or structure. However, there is a lot more that goes into the outcome of what the model looks like. We always look for an inspiration or precedent from which we will construct our model. Inspirations may come from buildings or stories themselves. After all, not all stories are true which make you think of a model that doesn’t necessarily have to be real but more abstract.

Once you have the idea of what it is you want to make and what it is that you will write your story about you must always keep in mind the amount of detail you will put into something. This creates the structure or body of your design or story. The more detail you put into it will make it more understanding and easier to follow. Keeping in mind the structure, you want to make sure it includes commodity, firmness and delight. Commodity in design to assure you that the person feels comfortable around your structure and commodity in stories to make sure your reader will comprehend and understand the story thoroughly. Firmness so that the structure will stand and give a feeling of sturdiness, and firmness in stories to make the reader more confident or have no doubt of what they are reading. Finally delight where the structure will not only please the person by just looking at it but will also make the person want to walk through it to see more. The same way delight will make the reader feel like they have a complete understanding of what they just read but will also learn from this and want to know more.

When all these steps above are completed many times it is best to revise your work. This can be done from the beginning in design. This is because many times you make iterations that when revising them you end up taking from each to come up with a different final model. Also when creating your final model you want to make sure that the craft is perfect. The same way in stories, you always start with a rough draft and throughout the process of concluding we revise it to make sure it is error free and easy to follow.

In conclusion, the most important thing to keep in mind is that design process and story [process} are similar. Each requires a journey to get to the final outcome. Also things that are designed and stories many times are taken in different ways and translated to have completely different meanings than what you expected. Even though you expected it to symbolize something else it symbolizes something
different to everybody. For example, in design process, the final structure may symbolize something different to each individual that interacts with it in different ways. Similarly, stories symbolize something different depending on how you want to interpret the moral.

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