Clay Moulton

click to enlargeHow Design Can Move from Green to Good

excerpt from Resonant Frequency:

We use them [drawings] to tell the story of our ideas. We are often trying to convince others that our ideas make sense, and will add value to a certain condition, or solve a relevant problem. We show active use of our ideas by people, in a place or setting. To do so, we need narrative, motion, exaggeration, etc., to make our potentially lifeless drawing vital — it’s got to ‘pop’ off the page.

Gravia is an LED-lit floorlamp energized by people. It has nothing whatsoever to do with this excerpt on drawing, but it was designed by Clay and it's cool looking. Click to enlarge, slightly.

What happens when our ideas need help in generation? What drawings do we use when our field is evolving, and our paradigms are changing? In this sense, the comic art methods of narrative, motion, etc., seem to fail in allowing study of an idea or concept as abstract as a paradigm shift. Perhaps we start to understand the ideas themselves as an exaggerated, in-your- face, slammed-to-the-walls 2-point perspective with maximum contrast and non-copy-blue pencil construction lines. Exaggeration, caricature, gesture, may not be necessary, and worse, may cloud the exploration of such abstract ideas.

Designers have many different ways of understanding and using the tool of graphic communication in various media. Isometric, axonometric, diagramatic, sections, plans, elevations, watercolor renderings... Some of these drawings are used to explain how an object is to be built, or how it was built. These drawings have actual physical outcomes in many cases. Usually, we give these drawings to other people that are in charge of making the molds for our plastic bits and pieces in the thousands and millions.

On the other hand, some of our drawings are used to explain how an object is conceived, or are used as tools within the process of conception. We usually give these to each other to create a dialogue about our ideas. We use them to solicit feedback. And they help our ideas get smarter.

Smart ideas must be queried, opened for dialogue, investigated — studied even. However, I think we may begin to confuse the utility of these different drawing methods. Is my good idea getting killed by my killer drawings? Are yours? Maybe some ways we draw will help us create a more powerful definition of the things we make. Maybe by investigating our ideas through drawing, rather than just trying to animate them, we can answer questions that bigger systems ask us. Design can solve big problems, and answer very difficult questions if we let it. So, are we just telling a story, or can we use drawings to investigate critical topics; to answer big questions?