mallol (1989) —td proces of design and narrative form

7/29/2019 Mallol (1989) TD Proces of Design and Narrative Form

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study of the legibility of the design object.There remains only the fourth set of investigations: the pre-test and

post-test studies oriented towards th e secondary functions. These ca nalso be subdivided, according to the themes, into two types. On the onehand the study of the implication and protective identification of the sub-ject with the design object. They are the studies of the image of brand,product, packaging, presentation of shape that the user possesses. Hereare indicated both the use of experiment and the use of survey and pro-jective methods. On the other hand we have the studies of the accep-tance and impact the o bje ct produces. These are the so-ca lled brand testsan d those that, by extension, we can call tests of packaging, presentationand form.

/ROO C E S S O F D E S I G N A N D N A R R A T I V EF O R MM I Q U E L M A L L O L

It may still be possible to believe in that old cultural ambition whichgave origin to design. That desire for a future made of values so muchhigher than those of well-being or the material quality of life. The closelink with ethic and aesthetic interests, which today are again being ex-pl ici t ly defended, produce in us a romantic seduction. A seduction whichagain encou rages us to l ink a radical thought, a meta-reflection, with theurgent need of a deontological intervention regarding those objec ts whichare daily used.

Maybe it is still possible to confide that the tension between these twoextremes will dignify professional work, elevating it to the most noblelevel of human acts.

Undoubtedly a very ambitious aim. So much so that it legitimizes us ,due to its wide outlook, to use all the points of view we believe appropriateto describe it, even from the strangest theoretical grounds.

Therefore, it is not the lack of descriptive resources which makes itdifficult to do minate the limits of design; on the contrary its excess is whatobliges to carry o ut a complex and laborious selection.

Nevertheless it seems that this painstak ing task is less heavy today. W ecan already count on new and valuable study material: the history of designtheory i tself. In fact, reflections on design already have a past, that is ,we can imagine historical periods, classify contents, discover intentions,successes and disappointments. Above al l we can learn from the roadstravelled. We do not need to limit the dialogue with other authors tothe improvised corridors in dai ly work; we can begin to believe in atheoretica l academ y, a launchin g ramp for finer and more effect ive pro-posals.

It is precisely towards this that Bruce Arch er encourages when he statesthat: "The metho dology of design is alive and exis ts under the name ofdesign research". Because if something is alive after demonstrating a fer-vent and even frenetic vitality it means it is still alive, that is it may lookbackwards more calmly to what has already past.

Let us also try to initiate this new reflection following his vete ran ex-pertise. According to our criteria this indicates that we must count withtwo principles, as a result of the present historical circumstance:

In the first place it is not necessary any more to initially establish a defini-tion of design to f rame its operatitivity. This urge was necessary whenthe concreteness of the initial purpose had to be demonstrated. Todaywe can more easily assume that this was a complex cultural act of faith,up to date impossible to eliminate, even though it doesn't prove to befeasible.

What is now relevant, necessary and we hope possible, is the systematican d serene construction of designs ow n discourse; th e time passed sincethe f i rst manifestations claims a space, a terminology and a way of sayingthat will fit with its pecul iar point of view. An adequate discourse for thefoundational spirit and the professional practice. To achieve this specialattention must be placed to not involuntarily repeat the discourses whichhave preceded us; these could only, in those prel iminary mom ents, tryto speak about design; it was too soon to try speaking from it.

If it had been attempted, with most valuable results, to englobe designwithin the discursive perimeters of semiotics, psychology, sociology, historyan d normative-methodology, i t was because design was thought to be anobject of these fields of research.

Since design has begun to search for its own discourse the rest havebecome useful but not distinctive.T e m s d e D i s s e n y . 1 9 8 9 / i . p p . 2 0 - 2 0 9


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the models and the concepts are also questioned in the new process.The act of projecting is another moment that seeks to speci fy in every

case th e smallest determinations of each object.The projection is thus not the limit of the whole process of design:

this extends itself within both extremes, from the maximum abstractionto the ultimate concretion.

This is not strange. While, in order to overcome the initial contradic-tory desire, the designer is cast to the act of abstraction, he immediatelymust direct the process towards concret ions. If he didn't behave in thiswa y he would not accomplish any improvement and would remain in adouble reflexive retreat, he would be inclined to radical thought. No, designis not philosophy, it cannot admit being put into categories, this is its radicalambition.

To underline this new intensity to the new act of projecting we willcal l it concrecions.

We can now begin to understand that the term moment does notrefer to a unit of time in the process of design but rather to the resultof its anlisis as an act. From the original tension, each of the momentsbetween the two extremes mentioned.

Although the concretions and the previous give the tone of the ten-sion in the development of design, we must yet see what make s up thec o n t e n t s which are distributed within both limits.

It is true that in his exercise the designer establishes procedures, normsof performance in the form of process and object models. It is also truethat the interdisciplinariety of design itself ca n propose an d even use ad-vantageously prefixed methodological tools. It is precisely the intentionof extending these procedures or tools to the whole process what ledsome designers to pressuppose that the peculiar discourse of design emerg-ed from them; a prejudice that still awaits a solution.

But its limitation does not disminish its value. In fact, the process ofdesign, when it is closest to concretions, constructs and determines cer-tain methodological techniques which, under the distant but intense lookof abstraction, will be useful in the act of projecting. This is the case, forexamp le , of sketch drawing, of graphics, of calculus instruments, of deci-sion techniques, etc: that is , of the operative models. To deduce theirnecessi ty we must only remember that concretions themselves are a trialac t for the evaluation and therefore the form of the trials must be previouslydetermined through its communicating capaci ty to the designer himselfor to other people. The moment of utilization or even of constructionof these procedures in the process of design will be generically calledmethodological techniques.

The operative models do not themselves determine any cognoscitivemodel. Further, it is essential to count on a specif ic desire for knowledge,it is necessary that the use of the technique itself demands t. Only whenan anomaly appears , when the question of what to do has no clear andimmediate answer does the question of understanding appear, the ques-tion of how it is.

This is evidently ou r case ; a way of understanding the initial tension isthat which considers design as a bet for the cognoscitive conscience ofits objects an d c i rcumstances. From this updated pespective, design is theaction which assures the correct use of the objects it controls; an actof foresight which could easily be confused with positive sc ience if notfor its implication in the resolution of artefacts.

Precisely in the mid point of the distance that separates the previousfrom the concretions, with a constant coming and going of themethodological techniques, is another element of the process: the elabora-tion of the information.

Thus the previous constantly display doubts regarding the applicabilityof traditional techniques and may even come to refuse them systematical-ly . For this reasson they generate the need of their reconstruction andeven their creation. This fact provokes the detection of the anomalieswe have just mentioned, that is , cognoscitive questioning. While this ishappening, the new act of projection, the concretions, in order to be usable,demand being firmly and definitively fixed, adding a positive character tothe resulting knowledge.

The act of informing englobes the construction of models special lyprepared for each specific case, the acquisition andelaboration of the data,an d the construction of the final models. It is another moment in the pro-

cess of design which responds to the need of overcoming the original con-flict in its historically central aspect and i ts epistemological aspect.

Anomalies m ay also be found in the knowledge established in eachhistorical period. And these are not discussedeither until they acquireenough value to not go by unnoticed. When the question of how is itbec omes the question of what is it.

The cognoscitive act cannot remain only within its positive, explanatoryor descriptive form from preconceived cognoscitive models. These arealso questioned from the moment in which radical thought needs to in-clude them in its course. Its elements are reformulated, eliminated or con-structed again to guarantee the ef f icacy of its application.

Models only represent one aspect of the specif ic object of design thatis being treated at every moment, but they imply certain possibilities ofits concept, those which are apt to consider it with coherence.

It is precisely the study and construction of the extent of thesepossibi l i t ies that makes another moment necessary : Conceptualization.That is, the recons truction and even creation of the concep ts which theelaboration of information needs and which the previous allows.

This is the moment we needed to delimit in order to locate thediscourseof design. However, the need to restrain its appearance in the formationof concepts m ay seem strange. In fact, theoretical works which have, upto date, talked about design considered that; either the act itself of positiveknowledge or the creation of operative object or process models werethe central moments of designs discourse. That is to say, either the elabora-tion of information or the methodological techniques contained thediscourse of design. Historical studies on design could also expect to findit in the previous,

None of these instants can, however, comprise designs ow n discourseas they do not deliberate on what is globally the object which each pro-cess is considering.

The techniques and the work of information particularly treat the struc-tures to a concept, of an already givensomethingand are thus not speci f icto design. They can be discourses of traditional projection or even be an W7auxilliary part of designs discourse, but they do not constitute it.

And the previous only give credit to the being, of the concepts possibilitywithout clarifying the need of its ex i s tence as an artefact, not searchinginternal coherence as an object of design. Its discourse could perfectlybe the discourse of an artistic, ethic or political manifest, or even an in-ternally coherent discourse which refuses the possibility of design froman alien sphere.

If we remember our recent affirmation regarding that which we con-sider a concept, we will see it is a possible form of knowledge as wellas the probability of its objectual existence; only conceptualization treats,constructs, the specif ic discourse of what each design is, of what design s.

Therefore, these are the process elements of the act of designingunderstood as an intellectual process. Although the inference an dcharacterization of each one has been brief it is enough to determine itsinternal necessi ty . This is not the place to refer to them extensively andthe reader will identify them also in other theoretical texts on design.All external descriptions will consider them and reconstruct their mostsignificant characteristics according to the intentionalitiesof each moment.

C O N C E P T U A L I Z A T I O N I N T H E A C T O F P R O J E C T I N GWe have not yet completed our previous aims of situating within the

process of design the moment in which its particular discourse appears.We have infered the need of the conceptualization according to designsown principles. It is still necessary to see it in action.

Each of the five process elements mentioned needs a motivation, aprecise sense of action to be carried out. With this we do not mean thatthe disposition previous, conceptualization, elaboration of information,methodological techniques and concretions in this order, is the only sensewe canobtain. On the contrary; these moments are not temporal instantsbu t intellectual states, an d thus this deductive disposition is the less ap -propriate to show us the act in a factualizing process. W e cannot forgetthat the necessity of an act is a formal one, of coherence and not tem-poral. Without this in mind we might even come to the false idea that


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the previous order belongs to a method: this would be a tremendous error.Besides this, the link of necess i ty with the same principles is what allows

the form of the possible action of each one of them to be assisted andclarified by each one of the others, as referential points of view.

Thus, for example, the elaboration of information acts in conceptualiza-tion capturing data for the empiric reformulation of the models whichthe specific concept in itself represents; but elaborations of informationacts in methodological techniques as its supplier of data.And not only do relations adjacent to the deductive articulation showus the act in every moment. We may also see from the methodologicaltechniques, for example, that the previous are the sense of their func-tioning, the ultimate reason for which the result may be considered, evenwhen we do not know its internal mechanisms.

Also conceptua/ization appears in them as an act of construction oftheir formal coherence.

Immediately we are brought to ask: From what point of view, fromwhat element of the process can the form of designs own discourse bediscovered? At the end of our introduction we already advanced the answer:The form of designs discourse can only be reconstructed starting fromthe conceptualgenesis of eachprojectedobject. That is: the point of viewwhich displays the act of conceptualization in such a way that we can deter-mine the form of designs own discourse is the projecting act itself, theconcretions.

We can now see better the reason for this answer.Concretions are those acts within the process of design which always

have exteriorly describable elements. The rest can always be resolved in-ternally. This is already a good reason to choose this point of view.

Nevertheless, this is not the only reason. The act of projecting is theonly one of the two extremes infered from the initial tension which isnecessar i ly linked to design as a profession; the other, the previous, dueto their radicality can cast doubt on the possibility itself of design in general.Therefore only concretions contain the need of action. Only from them

MP can we expect a description of act.Neither do the elaboration of information nor the methodological tech-

niques reflect in themselves any act, as they can be limited to supplyinga logical-formal cover to the relationship between the resulting conceptsan d the research and operative models.Therefore, the only moment from which we can expect to see con-ceptualization in action is the act of projection, the concretions. In thisintellectual activity we will find a peculiar discourse and so discover itscharacter ist ics.

P R E S U P P O S I T I O N SLet us remember our objective was to discover the presuppositions we

ha d settled in our attempt to construct the discourse of design.These will make up its form.Now we intend to explain them, after situating the moment of con-

ceptualization from the point of view which establ ishes its action.In the concretions, in the new act of projecting, all the other elements

of the process appear; either as peculiar instruments for the evaluationof its proposals or as general dispositions from which these proposals canbe shaped. As we have seen they are the only elements which intervene.

At this point anyconsideration regarding creativity comes down to theattitude of the designer-person himself or the design team for the accep-tance of the unlimitation which besides it still exists. Without them, withoutthese moments not even this unlimitation would exist.

For this reason the fundamental scheme of this action is the trial-errormodel, starting from the determinations prepared by the other elementsof the process.

Further, concretions are an act of projecting as we have repeatedlypointed out, that is they don't factualize their trials but project themon the screens of the drawings, the tests or prototypes.

Therefore, they also project the concepts these contain, those whichhave made the assayed solution possible. In other words, the object createdcontains in itself the concept which is also under evaluation.

For this reason the concepts are sub jec t to two conditions:

Firstly, they will have to be shaped in such a way that the projectionof use of the resulting object f ilters its errors andsuccesses. And this filtra-tion must be deap, that is, reaching the concept itself.

Secondly, the results of the evaluation should be registered in the con-cept.

These two conditions will aid us in delimiting the presuppositions.As the use of an object of design is a human happening, in the same

way its projection is a fictitious creation of this imaginary event.Thus, the concept should be elaborated in order to contain in itselfthe reference of this human event. Further, this creation should gatherthe globality of the event, not a partial description nor a fragmentation;all aspects of what is happening should be able to be evaluated.

This is thus, a fundamental presupposition which shapes th e d iscourseon design from the concretions in the conceptualization:

The concept of an object of design should be expressed in such a waythat it can be evaluated from the act of projection starting from a referenceto the globality of a human event.

Many of the discourses on design have considered this principle. Thus,the history of its theory conta ins f ields such as semiology, psychology,sociology, history and methodology. As we pointed out in the introduc-tion they all refer to human events.

We can still expect that there will be others: anthropology, biology,etc. Some are already emerging.

We have had to shelter in a sufficiently ambiguous point of view, thecultural, to initiate our inferences. Any anlisis of design should includea totality of human events. We would not accep t anystudy of design thatwa s exclusively physical, chemical or... Although their o b jec ts would pro-bably be exhaustively described, they would not tell us anything about thefact that they are design.

However, the present discourses do not seem appropriate to useither;we have previously justified that they don't provide us with the globalitywe desire.

And for more serious reasons than those we have mentioned, in fact,the research on the form of designs dicourse discovers the exterior ofthese descriptivespheres. Furthermore this research exists ever since designdoes; it itself establ ishes it.

We need only be aware of the value of the previous, their radicality.From the act of projection, the double reflexive retreat represented bythe previous, with its deal abstractions, also assumes in each specif ic casethe construction of its own discourse, that is, the designer involves himselfas a human being in his decisions. He cannot admit that what he is creatingca n be viewed from a perspective which excludes him. An example of thisfact is how we still enjoy discussions on the noble singularity of designor whether it possesses or not artistic nature.

This is the reason why any present description of the scientif ic model,which bases its objectivity on the disappearance of the scient ists-person 'simplications, is also inadequate for design.

It is therefore another initial presupposition: That the form of thediscourse which refers to design should also represent the designer, thevalue of the previous.

That the concept projected in the act of projecting should include itsintensity, its meaning.We have previously refered to another condition in the use of designconcepts: The registration of the results of the project evaluation. Thisimplies that the cognoscitive value of the discourse on design should beable to fix the concept's whole series of determinations which appear asdefinite in every moment.

Thus, seen from the concretions, the conceptualization act should havetwo stages: the first which includes the concept in the project ion of animaginary human act of use andevaluates it. The second which summarizesand registers the results of the evaluation. While the two previous presup-positions refer to the first stage that of evaluation, now another presup-position appears for the record of this evaluation: The way in which theresults obtained are fixedmust condition allpossible criticisms of the pro-ject andeven of its use, so that the designer wll feel obliged to submithimself operative// to it in the following concretions andaccordingly wllserve as a frame for communication with the user.

Before trying to discover what form of discourseis possible with these


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presuppositions it is nec es s a r y to exclude one of the existing proposalswhich intends to solve the last presupposition. Certainly we could expectthe need of conditional fixation to mould the need of an deal frameworkof problems-solutions. This frame, assumed by the designer aspreviousand communicated to the speaker and user who should also admit itas deal, would contribute to the task of projecting and to its communica-tion with anefficient andoperative tool, amethodological technique. Butthis ideal, due to the fact that it is aprevious, also needs to be questionedan d cannot therefore assume the wholenessof a definitive form of discourseon design.

This hasbeen the case of the ideal link function-shape, which preciselytoday is being questioned due to the operative limitation of themethodological techniques it has generated; asignificant limitation whichhas overthrown this ideal frame, taking with it many of the aspects of therationalist project.

N A R R A T I V E F O R MMany of the transformations which have come about In the sphere of

design theory are a reflection of the wide andenrgic debates in the fieldof the epistemological principles of sc ience and the prerrogatives of techni-que. It would obviously beabsurd to try to summarize here the differenttendencies that have been defended and those which still persist. However,one of them deserves our attention as it attempts giving a solution topresuppositions vvhich a re very close to those we have j u s t formulated.

In fact, a great number o f works have been published lately which in -tend to respect the epistemological validity of history and fiction storiesby reassessing th e cognoscitive essence o f narrative. And al l this accor-ding to the principles of the wholeness of experience and the permanenceof the subject.

One of the constants that is common to these thesis ha s been th e dif-ferentiation between the explanatory andcomprehensive epistemologicalmodels.

Explanat ion establ ishes a ca u se - e f f e c t model which is applied to afragmented reality on the only as pec t in which the explicit model canoperate.Comprehension, on the contrary, plays with intentionality, the aims andpurposes of the agents, the meaning of an action, of a sign or a rite, globaliz-ing in this way the cognitive clarification of the event which is the objectof the study.

Therefore, a n explanatory approach i s not sufficient to comprise a llthe complexity of a human event. The u se of al l cognitive means isnec es s a r y , even those perspectives which th e positive attitude ha d most-ly discredited. Amongst these, the story, the narrative form, provides thepossibility of including the explanatory model also in a Unitarian perspective.

The similarity of these principles with our presuppositions infered fromthe original project of design is, according to our criteria, total. In fact:What other form of discourse, other than fiction narrative, could includethe synthesis of knowledge of a human event projected for its global evalua-tion and which questions the previous of the designer himself? Is not,precisely, the game of interpretation which intends to discover all thepossible interpretations of the concretion of a graphic design a fictitiousnarration of the event of its presence in public?

Is not also a fiction story the imaginative projection of the possible andglobal use of an industrial o r interiorist design, which is used to discoverits real value?

Which other discourse could satisfy the first two presuppositions thatfiction narrative does solve , espec ia l l y considering that w e c an only us etwo more discourses, the scientific and the technical, having already pointedout that these have their space delimited to the process of design?

Can we expect that it will be possible to construct another form ofsynthes is , unknown until now, if this is a finality of the original tensionan d is thus limited to the objects that the designer determines andcannothave, beforehand, an y preconceived form?

It is obvious that this form of discourse in the conceptualization of thep roce ss of design will have some peculiarities, due to the particular ob-j e c t i v e s and finalities of design, but its form, according to our criteria,

ca n only be that of fiction narrative. The doubt immediately arises aboutthe reasons for which this form of discourse has not been explicitly ad-mitted. Possibly the need for normativizing or overcoming the originalt ens i o n has precipitated th e rebuke o f this incredibly flexible, intersubjec-tive and apparently weak form.

The third pressupposition has u s t delimited the form of this narratived iscou rse . The need to fix results which condit ion any possible criticismof the project forces eac h narrative stage to show itself in such a w aythat a truth or a value may be infered. It must be able to respond to thequestion of the conditions it must meet in some determination of the pro-j ec t ed object. It is the nearest thing to aparable that adduces the possibilityof putting the trial concept into practice. Where the concept isassoc iatedto an image of a human event, projected in the imagination of the designer-person almost like anallergology, like aconcretion of certain abstract ideas,those of the previous. A very special parable which reflects certain values,masks and a fictitious artifact, which are put into imaginative play to evaluatetheir ca p a c i t y o f existence a n d their ethic, aesthetic a n d practical con se -quences. Every time this parable lifts its imaginative flight it questions thepossibility of overcoming the initial tension. In the same way that normsof behaviour and vis ions of what is possible and real m ay be infered fromtraditional stories, that is, in a conditional way, conceptualization is alsoconditioned. Thus th e designer is accustomed to accept a nd even needsconditions such as : the object must be..., it is necessary that th e designhave..., ...it must meet..., in other words, the long and well-knownlist of conditioners.

These l is ts a re that which th e d iscou rse ha s generated, that which th eephimeral but effective interior parable prescribes.

The morality of this spec ia l fable refers not only to ethical determina-tions but also to formal ones. Thus allowing the accomplishment of thethree presuppositions we have considered.

Certainly th e narrative form englobesth e totality of an event a s n factit generates i t, and does so in such a way that the designer is present inthe cognoscitive act. It is he who determines both the values and the evala- TflQtion. Without forgetting the radicality of the original tension of design,i t is he who uses the p roce ss of design as an act o f double reflection an dof urgent and immediate proposal of objectsof daily use. E ver y conditionis a proposal of ideality; and asnothing forces us to previously determinean y uniformity between them, anycoherence, the sphere of applicabilityis energically widened without the need fo r looking fo r a new general idealof the problem-solution type. Precisely, the coherence between the con-dit ions should be proposed by the solution obtained from th e object itself;in this way conditioned conceptualization is not put into categories butpoints with extreme braveness to the possibility of the ambitious originalproject.

This may be the path to determinate the constitution of design's owndiscourse.

If the previous l ines do not contain any fundamental error, there is stilla long way to go in order to truly investigate in depth. What we clearlyse e now is that a scientific discourse on the peculiar d iscou rse o f designis no t possible: th e intensity with which th e designer questions his ownproposals and ambitions does allow believing in the value of a fragmentedstudy.For this reason, we have been forced to infer the form of the discoursefrom the presuppositions coherently implied in the original project; webelieve that a study in depth of what we have exposed must follow thes ame path. If not academic objectivity will drown the initial creed... andmaybe it is still possible to believe in that beautiful an d heroic cultural desire.

mallol (1989) —td proces of design and narrative form

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