Reading Response #3: Artful Design Chapter 3: “Visual Design”

Alanna Sun

October 10, 2021

CS 476A, Stanford University

Reading Response: Invent Artificial Constraints

This week’s reading really took full advantage of the comic-book format of the book. I thought it was really cool how we start off with an exploration of form and color that leads into the larger idea of how we can iterate on simple building blocks to design complex systems. This also ties into the ongoing notion that design is “intentionality exceeding methodology.” I found the framework pretty helpful as an approach to thinking about my own design as I work on the audio visualizer. What personality am I trying to imbue within the program, and how does that fit into form and function? 

Personally, Principle 3.13: Invent Artificial Constraints, was really interesting to me, because, at first, it seems contradictory that adding constraints creates space for creative agency. But then, I thought about the zipper pencil case that we saw in class and in chapter one, and realized that the part that instills delight and playfulness is derived from the constraint that the object is supposed to be a pencil case, and it has a certain function to fulfill. Given this function, the designer then added the very creative (or maybe involuntary? Who knows) constraint of creating a pencil case out of a single zipper. This, in turn, gives way to the strange design loops that bring us satisfaction and connections, which then leads to the final principle that originality is recombination. 

It’s interesting to frame creativity through the lens of what makes it possible for something to be creative. If chess had fewer rules, I’m sure many famous, game-winning moves would be a lot less impressive. It makes sense that if there is no box in the first place, then there is nothing to think outside of--but, I haven’t really thought about creativity that way before.

Naturally, I then tried to think of some constraints that I could give myself in design, and found it surprisingly difficult to come up with them, and even harder to commit to them. For example, let’s say for my audio visualizer, I’d like to use the form/action of flight--how would I then go about creating constraints for either the designer, or the user to engage in the product within the motif of flight? How do we go from an idea of form or function, to feasible constraints that make sense, and inspire us instead of stressing us out? How much of the constraint is intentional, and how much is accidental, or involuntary? Although, I’m not quite sure about the answer to this on the design end, it is fun to think about making the user enact the motion of flight, and it would be really cool to make them experience or, at least, imagine the sensation of flight. In this vein, I thought it was quite impressive how Golan Levin’s Yellowtail was able to embody the feeling of the verb “slither” so well!