Principle 1.18: Design is a thing in motion.

—which is to say when we design, the things we design in turn design us.

I'd also like to circle back to a discussion class about what we ought not to design, which for the aforementioned reason seems pretty important -- the consequences for improper design seem pretty personal.

The point of a question like "what shouldn't we design" seems to be not about what we should never make based on ethics or morals -- such as dictatorships or weapons of mass destruction -- but about what processes and activities should not be done with a design framework. Ge, for example, mentions friendship as an example. Friendships happen organically, and while they might have beautifully organized or clever structures, habits and quirks (similar interests, regular encounters, etc), they are not pre-determined. A friendship that's designed is called networking.

I think a lot of art shouldn't be designed, either. A Jackson Pollock generates a visceral response in part because it appears improvised and unplanned, an expression of spur-in-the-moment emotion, even if the techniques that he employed were thought through. (Or idk maybe Pollock meticulously designed each stroke imbued with meaning and metaphor, or however you'd like to justify these paint spills being millions of dollars).

Jazz is another great example of undesigned art. Indeed, much "design" comes into play to begin with, such as the predetermination of form and chordal structure, or the jazz musician's practice of licks and scales before performing. But I would say that the melodies generated in an improvised solo are decidedly not designed, and are exciting and beautiful because they aren't designed, but created in real-time.

One could argue that all of these examples of "non-design" are rather examples of "real-time design" -- while a solo is not predeterined, soloists could be considered to be designing in the granular level, from each phrase to phrase. Solos have shapes and story that are coherent and suggest design. By this logic, though, conversations and even friendships are yet designed -- we think sentences and make plans ahead, and so at a granular level those are also designed, too, no?

I'd arue that when we see jazz solos and improvised art, we are not seeing something designed, but rather witnessing the act of design. Fascinatingly, the act of design turns out to be just as meaningful and fulfilling as something that is design -- "design is experienced" not only in the sense that good design brings out meaning and delight, but that the process of design itself can help us understand ourselves even more so than the finished product can. Jazz soloists experiment and test, fail and retry, all in real time. While only some solos go on to transcend their temporal nature, recorded and listened to as "designed" products, solos are meaningful because they are ephemeral, the real-time acts of human creation and problem solving -- the hidden part of the artful design iceberg.

The CEO of Netflix (or some CEO, I wasn't able to find the exact quote to be honest) once said of the written description of his company's values that they were written to describe what was already happening in the company, not to enforce some ideal. Team culture -- and culture generally -- often fails because of attempts for it to be designed. Human interaction isn't meant to have lofty goals or aspirations, even if said group of humans have them themselves. Rather, the act of coming to a culture or group norm together should be thought of as a means-of-itself. There's a beautiful aesthetic to good design process -- the process of design itself plays with form and function in a way that makes designing itself quite artful.

1. Toilets. I love toilets. They look way more complicated than they seem they need to be -- why do they have so many loopdiloops and a big ol basin? -- and yet they are incredibly efficient and effective. And its the neccesary features of its design that make it so beautiful -- the wide mouth and bowl, the complex plumbing at the base -- why do all toilets look like they belong in a Greek temple? I think pooping is one of the most personal things one can do -- you wouldn't even let your lifelong partner see you poop, would you? I suppose we should be so fortunate that so much beautiful is given to something that is so personal.


2. TikTok. TikTok is the worst, most exploitive social media app on people's phones today, and I think it's so beautiful in its terribleness. Every design choice feels tailor-made to grab your attention -- the scrolling mechanism forces strong interaction between you and content, the app layout drives you towards in-app purchases in lives and its in-app marketplace, and the algorithm is designed perfectly to keep you hooked, giving you just enough of what you want but not enough that you lose your craving. It's goddamn awful, but I have to appreciate how brilliantly awful it is. If a supervillain in a movie wanted to make an app that would mind-control the world, TikTok would be the prototype.


3. Reverse soundcheck order. This one's super simple -- when you soundcheck a show with multiple bands, you soundcheck them in reverse order to when they'll play in the actual show. This way, whoever plays last puts their amps and gear in the back, and then each earlier band places their gear in front, so that after each band plays they just have to strike their gear to reveal the next band's gear behind it. Simple enough -- a trick more than a design -- but as a concert-thrower and audio tech this absolutely delighted me when I learned about it, as it was a delightfully simple solution to a problem I didn't even realize I had yet, that yielded incredible increases in efficiency for my shows. If a simple, elegant, delight-inducing solution with an incredible efficacy isn't artful design, I don't know what is.