Reading Response #1: Artful Design Chapter 1: “Design Is _______”

Alanna Sun

September 26, 2021

CS 476A, Stanford University

Reading Response: Design is Subtraction

This week’s reading, as well as the first in-class discussion, seeks to pinpoint the meaning of design, a concept that eludes definition because its complexity and scope essentially encompasses the human experience of living. To fully understand artful design would be to understand the human common denominator: what it is that sparks emotion, and how we go about bringing these universal emotional experiences to life for both ourselves and others, in novel and nuanced mediums. This idea of capturing common denominators capable of connecting individuals by inducing feelings fundamental to the human experience struck me as inspiring and hopeful, because it means that design has the power to unite. In particular,this brings me to the point that really stuck out to me from the reading--Principle 1.10: Design is Subtraction, which states that design is about removing the superfluous parts of an idea and really focusing on the core values and function that one intends to express. 

This reminds me of how the products we own often try to do too much. For example, before we got a Kindle stick, which has a total of about ten buttons, my family had been struggling with the old TV remote that comes with the cable, the kind that has an entire telephone keypad on the bottom and another 20 buttons on top and around the sides of the remote. It was really frustrating to use--there were a bunch of buttons that we would only ever press by accident, and could never quite figure out what they were meant to do. 

An opposite example, though, that demonstrates the elegance and effectiveness of simplicity is stories like fables, tales, and myths. Specifically, when I was reading this passage on design as subtraction, my mind immediately went to Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, which is about a young shepherd’s journey to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure he’d dreamed of. The story is lovely and touching because of its simplicity, how it takes the most direct route to make the reader feel a sense of wonder and warmth. It’s similar to why a Marvel movie is so much fun to watch: the film is designed to present stories in a simple, epic and exciting manner, and it keeps millions of people anticipating the next film. 

One last point from the reading that I wanted to touch on is the icon for the book, the 人 character. I thought it was really interesting that there is a cycle surrounding the character. In addition to how it represents humans in the loop, to me, it also reflects how we’re constantly cycling between pragmatics and aesthetics, and in each moment, within each context, we might be at a different point of the circle, but we’re nonetheless always revolving around these two pillars.