On design ( Preliminary)

This is an intention and a project.

Design is a profession without an official curriculum. One becomes a designer by being recognised as a designer by others recognised as designers. A design education helps but is not required. In this respect it is rather like Science. Such a recursive entry does not make for a satisfactory definition. " Design is what designers do" amuses me but is not helpful.

In the very broadest sense designers manipulate perception at the behest of clients.

About a year after leaving Parsons for the second time I put in some time thinking hard about
"DESIGN". The forty years or so of existential accretion crystallized into a statement. The object is ornament. The dual meaning of this statement was intentional. Object being both a physical construct and goal or other desired end point . Object is not an infinitive because it is not additively applied. The physical object is beautiful in itself. Adding to it does not increase its beauty. Subtracting from it does not improve it. As an example take type. You have probably noticed that I am writing in Times Gothic. When I was introduced to graphic design, my class followed fashion and used sans serif faces, mostly Micrograma bold. I was unhappy with the legibility. It took years for me to notice that book designers in general used serif faces for text that was to be read. It took more years for it to come to my attention that the serif was inherited from the Romans who took it from the Greeks. The accent at the end of the stroke adds to the legibility of the letter. A manipulation of perception.

This is an attempt at an historical approach.
Ornament is sin. Corbu, Adolf Loos, Catholicism, protestant, Rennie Mackintosh, Elephant portfolio, Wright. Glass chain? Marc Isambard Brunel?
Whistler, Ruskin, Gothic, William Morris, romanticism, socialism, impressionism, photography

There is a bipolarity in culture: additive - subtractive. objects illustrate it. it is ideological.
What is under consideration is aesthetics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetic
I object to this approach. Aesthetics for me is the very practical and applied craft of producing a graceful and useful object. It uses the social norms rather than the personal.