Tag: DesignersParadox

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Design versus shopping

I’ve said it elsewhere, and so now I’m saying it here.

If the client knows exactly what they want at the start of a design process, then it isn’t design – it’s shopping. Shopping for the answer that you’ve already decided upon. Because design isn’t the business of dealing with knowns. It is precisely because there are unknowns that we need a design process.

By all means we should have an initial brief that describes outcomes we are trying to reach. And then begins a journey into realm of unknown possibilities and constraints to find out what might be possible. What we may discover is that that original statement of intent was not quite right. We might find something based on a better understanding of the situation.

And then we get a better brief. Better for everyone involved, including the client.

Consider the opposite. The client sets a tightly defined brief with highly specified outcomes. The designer is forced to the client’s exacting brief, tantamount to a shopping list (and which has probably become formalised as a contract). The designer discovers a better solution but because it is not on the client’s shopping list, it isn’t considered.

And so the client comes back from the shops with what they asked for. But there is no guarantee they are going to fit.

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Le paradoxe du design

I was in Paris last week to deliver a creative thinking workshop for engineers. I did the presentation in English and the Q&A in French — a happy balance that let me be precise in theory and looser in conversation. 

But I got a bit stuck translating ‘the Designer’s Paradox’ in French. 

The Designer’s Paradox says ‘you don’t know what you want until you know what you can have’ (McCann 2001)

Asking for help here’s some suggestions I got during the day.

On ne sais pas ce que l’on veut avoir, tant que l’on ne sais pas ce que l’on peut avoir. 

Translated back into English, this reads as ‘one doesn’t know what one wants for as long as one doesn’t know what one can have‘. It’s a fair translation, but long and literal. 

Then came:

‘Savoir ce que l’on veut, ou vouloir ce que l’on peut.’

Literally — know what you want or want what you can. It’s crisper and I like the rhythm. But the meaning drifts — it’s more about choosing between reality and desire. 

Mashing these together, I came up with: 

Savoir ce que l’on veut, savoir ce que l’on peut, vouloir le meilleur des deux

Know what you want, know what you can, want the best of both. But that isn’t really French!

In searching for the French version of the Designer’s Paradox, I’ve found another. 

Translate the meaning and lose the poetry

Translate the poetry and lose the meaning. 

That’s the translator’s paradox.