What the f*&^ is Product Design?

So yesterday, I had my first ever contemporary design class. It began with an introduction to the module which mainly circled around; "What is product design?" and "What does design mean to you?". There was many questions thrown out to us about design while my mind tried to make sense of it all. It was a challenging thought process and I was surprised by the strong opinions that began to emerge.

For the first exercise, we split up into two sides of the room depending whether we thought Product Design should be classified as Art or an engineering course. To my surprise, more students agreed that it was classified as an engineering course. I stood on the art side of the room. Our side of the room had very interesting views on why we believed product design was more art related. For me, I believe that art can be such a broad term with so much freedom to express and communicate through aesthetics which is why I also believe design itself is free and expressive. Engineers seem to play by so many rules and restrictions. There is a reason why we have engineers separate from designers. They make things work which is great. We, on the other end make things work but make them look good while we're doing it.

Another question which we were asked was what do people at home say when we tell them we are product designers? Well that's obvious seeing as most people I've told what I do respond with "Isn't that marketing??"or "Don't you just have to sketch all day?" and "Oh what's that, that sounds very fancy". I don't always have a set response but it's usually something like "We design products. It could be a cardboard chair or a speaker or making a chain reaction work". Every time we get a new project I usually send pictures and videos of the process to friends and family. To be honest, I think I just confuse them even more about what we do in this course because every project can be so different and versatile.

At the end of the class we were asked what our design philosophy was. This wasn't something we had to know right then and there but something we could develop and change. For me, my whole design process is usually very crazy, messy and free. This can be good and bad as I'm trying to work on being more of a perfectionist. At this current moment, I think Design is like a spectrum of colours. Each colour represents the many different aspects of design. Be it aesthetics, sketching, model making or engineering, each aspect of design can share equal importance and each skill and strength can mix to keep creating new colours. A never ending messy rainbow that has no end. Design will continue to keep on changing and developing in the future.