Pursuing Excellence in Design and Technology - Raj Lal

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

What Makes a Good Design

A good design in my opinion, needs to achieve its goal clearly, what it was primarily meant for.


    The goal of the design can be:

  • 1. Solving a problem creatively
  • 2. Communicating an idea effectively
  • 3. Plain aesthetic, which makes people wonder



To solve a problem creatively "Form follow function" is a great principle because its focus is the functionality which is the solution to the given problem. To communicate an idea effectively, visual delight becomes more important, effective display of the core idea with the help of minimum amount of pictures, words or illustration makes a greater impact. Plain aesthetic design can be achieved with both simplicity as well as abstractness, it is not limited to any design principles and neither are means to an end. It could be a visual delight and can also reflect an Idea.

So what makes people wonder ?

I think that this quality is the impact of a good design.


  1. One way would be to make it very simplistic, for example Picaso's famous painting make people wonder because of hte simplicity.


  2. Another way is if the picture has extraordinary depth for example the Barbershop by Norman Rockwell has amazing lights http://www.nrm.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Shuffletons_Barbershop_300.jpg


  3. yet another way to make people wonder is by hidden meaning or trick in the picture




So what do you think ?

Labels: , ,

Thursday, February 11, 2010

First step in the Right direction

After working for a decade in software industry, when I realize that it is not the MBA or Project Management route I want to take, my options looked quite limited, but some soul searching, and I realized what I really want to do, to learn fundamentals of drawing, design, typography, and illustrations.

Not long after, I came across the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and their online course in Design which also give a Diploma in Digital Design.



The Diploma in Digital Design course was almost mesmerizing. It was like waiting there to be discovered by me.

* Fundamentals of Design
* Concept Development
* Typography
* Digital Image Manipulation
* Electronic Design
* Design Principles
* Digital Illustration
* Design and Technology
* Portfolio G313
* Foundations of Electronic Production
* Interactive Portfolio Design
* Advanced Computer Graphics

Small enough to be finished in 5 quarters and big enough to give me a diploma, now that's a lucky find.

So I filled the online application and came to the part where you have to write an essay why you want to join. That stopped me, but not for long, today afternoon my admission counselor called me and said she will hold the call till I finish the essay. now thats some persuasion ! Phew, no way out, she is waiting in the call. So here is the 185 words I came up in 10 minutes !

--------------------- ESSAY ---------------------
I remember the first time when I came across the book "Universal Principles of Design" by William Lidwell, I was immensely fascinated by the possibilities to which design principles can be implemented in the real life. Another revolutionary book which affected me a lot was "The Design of every day things" by Donald Norman. These two books opened my eyes to a good design and a better user experience, since then I started blogging about design at http://abcofdesign.com and got interested to learn the fundamentals.

After working for many years in designing and developing user interfaces for desktop, distributed and mobile applications, I have realized that a good design makes a lot of difference, and having an aptitude for User Interface and User Experience, I think learning about digital design can help me get to know the basics.

Being a Senior Engineer with an interest in Software and Product design, I see myself as a future design engineer changing/shaping the world, and for that a diploma in Digital Design is the first step in the right direction.
-------------------------------------------------

Needless to say when I re-read the essay I liked it and so did my admission counselor, she said "it was phenomenal" and "I passed it". I wonder if she says that to every other essay, but I felt really happy and so that's my first step in the direction of design.

Labels: , ,

Yours Truly


+1-650-224-3812
rajlal[@]live[.]com
@irajlal
Facebook/ irajeshlal

Connect with me

      
      

Digital Design Essentials

 
Digital Design Essentials
100 ways to design better desktop, web, and mobile interfaces


Making a difference at W3C

Blog Archives

My New Article

 
Build an Advanced Camera App for Nokia Lumia Phones at MSDN Magazine


MSDN Article on Accessibility

 
Accessible Design with HTML5 at MSDN Magazine


Silverlight VB Book

 
Fun with Silverlight 4 with VB
(Amazon/ Kindle edition)

 
Fun with Silverlight 4 with C#
(Amazon/Kindle edition)

 
Developing Web Widget
(Amazon/Kindle edition)

My Other Books

 
Beginning Smartphone Web Development
(Amazon)


Creating Vista Gadgets with... Silverlight
(Amazon)

My Article at MSDN Magazine

 
Developing 3D Objects

(Fun with Silverlight 4)

Code Project MVP

Codeproject MVP 2008
My Articles at CodeProject

LinkedIn Connect

View Rajesh Lal's profile on LinkedIn

My Twitter Updates

Fun Badge

Free Fun badge


Atom

Association of Computing Machinery