the power of

design
*chapters 1, 2 & 3

Juliana Proserpio
 The evolution
of design
*This chapter was written by Juliana Proserpio and is part of
a series from Echos on The Power of Design.

Design has evolved and expanded its horizons in recent years. One of the rea-
sons behind this evolution is increased complexity in how people deal with
design challenges.

At first glance, the term design makes us think about aesthetics and tangible
objects with sub categories such as graphic design, product design, car
design, and shoe design. However, the scope of design is wider including con-
sidering the intended outcome related to an action and planning human
cetered solutions. This may involve tangible or intangible problems and solu-
tions whose designs are dependent on the nature of the problem and the
desired solution.

When dealing with complex problems the WAY you do things or HOW you
solve problems matters and creates different outcomes. The rule that states
“the order of the factors does not alter the product” is not applicable when
dealing with systemic change and people and this is why
HI! design thinking has been so important nowadays.
I AM DESIGN :)

The concept of design has transformed in the last few

decades to include a journey into infinite matters and
goals. If design were a person, I would say that this
person had started learning the use of aesthetics and
gradually progressed to learn how to tackle and translate
outcomes for information and communication problems

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through graphic and visual design. After making this progression, our friend
“design” took another step forward and started dealing with physical things.
Specifically, “design” started creating products, spaces and every possible
tangible outcome. When “design” took this step, it became easier to under-
stand what “design” is capable of doing. One of the examples of this order of
design is BAUHAUS where the belief was that “form follows function”. These
abilities are important in societal development. Design of tangible things
helped shape our society at the industrial age until now.
“Design” was already becoming famous but it was still shy and material orient-
ed. He then understood that his life couldn’t only be understood through mate-
rial perception. Hence, he started experimenting with the creation and manip-
ulation of things that weren’t material or tangible. The things that exist in
between other relations.
This is when interaction design emerged, and it started to tackle the broad yet
underestimated science of intangible creations.

When “design” started to understand that he could work with

and create solutions that weren’t tangible, he decided to go
wild and started creating solutions and preferred futures. It is
then that design grew exponentially and became BIG.
Thus far, no one fully understands everything about how
“design” creates preferred futures, design systems, cultures
and behaviours. The fact remains that he has released him-
self from tangible things and is experimenting more complex
and dynamic parameters.

When “design” tries to describe himself, he only says that he

is the consciousness of creating a solution. He is, at the same
time, the thinking and the action of it. He determines himself
as an action emerging from deep thinking, and a logic for
creating preferred futures and solutions. Whenever you

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invite your friend “design” to work with you, he will help you
to think and then create an intended outcome.

How design evolved:

Richard Buchanan, in his ideas about Four Orders of Design theory, points out
how design has evolved over time in its overall scope; from a context of creat-
ing tangible things to accessing intangible change.

SYSTEMS
- culture
- organizations
- business
- learning
INTERACTION
- service
- experience
1
ORDER
2
ORDER
3
ORDER
4
ORDER
- behaviour
- digital

ARTIFACTS / INDUSTRIAL
- product
- space (architecture)

SYMBOLS
- graphic
- information
- communication

1_DESIGN OF SYMBOLS
In the first order, using the principles of Graphic and Information Design, there
is an emphasis on developing the necessary symbols for the communication
process. From a visual point of view, it is a matter of projecting the message to
be transmitted, persuasive arguments, syntax and semantics, enabling under-
standing and facilitating the exchange of information. This is the order of
design that involves typography, illustration, photographs, prints and every-
thing related to the universe of graphic design, visual design and communica-
tion design.

2_DESIGN OF OBJECTS (OR INDUSTRIAL DESIGN)

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The designer's intention in this order is to design physical objects that are
useful to people, such as in Industrial Design and Architecture. It is about
selecting and applying different materials, design tools and incorporating
available technology, which will give support in use and interaction in the real
world. This order is related to physical, tangible artefacts, objects and space
(architecture).

3_DESIGN OF INTERACTIONS
This order is related to people's behaviour, as occurs in Interaction and Service
Design. The third order is about designing the processes involved in how
people act; designing transactions and activities over time, as well as defining
the points of contact and choice options. In the interaction order the field of
design is in action. The focus here is on drawing experiences rather than
objects. In this order the focus is on interaction, services and experience
design.

4_DESIGN OF SYSTEMS
The last order of design is the most complex, we are talking about designing
dynamic environments and systems. It is about designing the transformation of
systems and their structures. It also involves designing their functions and
flows as well as using its dimensions and constraints. The last order focuses on
human systems, the integration of information, objects, interactions and
social, work and learning environments. In this order the focus is to design
businesses, learning experiences, systems, culture, organizations, and cities.

The four orders of design can represent four different contexts where design
can be applied, four orders of thought maturity in design, or just four different
ways of approaching a design problem.

Regardless of which or how many orders of design are con-

sidered, in each of them we can design the invisible, the
unseen, or the intangible aspect of it... Design transforms
realities.

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If you think that simple signalling can change people's flow in a given location;
A well-designed object can make life easier for people. A service thought from
the beginning till the end becomes a memorable experience. A business like
Uber, for example, is transforming the way we drive in the city and face urban
mobility. Think about how can you redesign your context, your world, the
system where you live in?
The power of good design is to design a solution that is well thought out and is
well executed in all orders of design. When these processes are adhered to,
real change happens.

At Echos we focus in the third and fourth order of design; an area that few
people endeavour because of its ambiguity and complexity. We call it the
“INVISIBLE DESIGN”.

We believe that the things that cannot be touched are the

things that matter the most. Consequently, this is why we as humans
cannot leave the design of the most important things such as services, experi-
ences, systems, organizations and culture left to unconscious design.

Humans are inherently designers; as designers we design the world where we

live in and where we will inhabit in the future. So, as designers, how might we
design the world, the structure, the culture and the system where we want to
live in?

*This chapter is part of a series from Echos on

05
The Power of Design, written by Juliana Proserpio
 Humans Are
Inherently Designers
*(chapter 2) This chapter was written by Juliana Proserpio and
is part of a series from Echos on The Power of Design.

You’ve probably never thought about it, but we are only here because we’re all
very good designers. Human beings are physically weaker, and not very fast
compared to other species. We also don’t possess unique body adaptations
that allow us to fly or swim… However, our greatest advantage is that we were
able to create TOOLS, and these tools are the ones that are making us evolve.
Human evolution is facilitated by our ability to invent and reinvent tools. By
creating tools, we are not only constantly evolving our skills, we’re also
developing new skills in order to generate intentional or non-intentional
results. This is what makes us DESIGNERS.
LANGUAGE:
able to communi-
cate new ideas,
tools, systems
BRAIN: and enact others
aspirations by it
desires
connections
BIT OF MADNESS:
creates “Le point de démence
intentions de quelqu'un, c'est la
source de son charme.”
Gilles Deleuze
EYES:
= Believe in
recognize yourself to
patterns endeavour change
(able to under-
stand problem,
cause, effect & EMOTIONS:
correlations) ability to feel
what others
feel, empathize
and also use
HANDS: intuition when
“maker hands” not knowing the
has skills to “right” answer
build,
prototype and
learn from it

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In the first chapter, the evolution of design was described using Buchanan’s
view on the four orders of design. This concept brings clarity in visualizing
what we’re designing or can design. It is at our disposal as individuals or as a
group to interfere and change ourselves, our surroundings, and our society.

Victor Margolin, in his book “The Politics of the Artificial:

Essays on Design and Design Studies”, explains that design
has characteristics which enable human development.

Our humanity is very much connected to our ability to

design and to redesign our own creations. As designers
we’re constantly redefining our relationship with our
surroundings and also with our reality. All this is not so
different from the ecology of nature that combines and
recombines atoms; the only difference is that in our case we
have a power. The power to intentionally and deliberatively
choose whether we want or not to interfere in our own
ecosystem.

As humans, we’re agents of mutations and now we’re even becoming mutants
ourselves since we’re designing genomes and advanced bodies which possess
enhanced skills through technology (cyborgs). As defined by Carlos Rati and
Matthew Claudel in their book The City of Tomorrow: Sensors, Networks,
Hackers, and the Future of Urban Life – “Mutations in the natural world are
random, our concept of design is directed by futurecraft. Most importantly,
futurecraft is not about fixing the present (an overwhelming task) or predicting
the future (a disappointingly futile activity), but influencing it positively.”

As designers, humans have created everything that is not natural and

everything else that is artificial. Think about all the things around you that was
designed by someone. Even the small things like the paper clips or the cup
you’re using to drink tea. Now go a little further: think about the computer from

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where you’re reading this article, the type font, the software to create this
article, the software to read it, the interface between computer and human.
Then go further: think about your language; think about your culture, the
values from your company or organization, the system in which we exchange
goods, money, think about the design used behind democracy, processes,
regimes, relationships, and schools. This list can go on forever.

Being aware of ourselves as designers can change the way we think about our
problems. It has the capacity to create a perception of power and will within
the system; and this is not something that we hear every day. Humans are
inherently designers and this is part of our evolution which has helped us
survive and improve along the way. However, we're now still exploring HOW
humans are able to design solutions individually or collectively in a broader
perspective. We’re yet to fully understand how humans are able to design, but
we have a few clues from what this might be.

As humans, we usually follow these 6 parameters to design

anything:

1. CONTEXT: We analyse context and transformations of the time that

are not yet fully consolidated (zeitgeist).

2. CULTURE: Design usually emerges from a culture reassuring it or

counter reacting to it, and this is related to values and beliefs.

3.
HUMAN NEEDS: Value is only created when address real needs. Good
design comes from understanding psychological patterns, behaviours
and actions behind preconceptions.

4.
PURPOSE: A purpose or an intention is essential to creating a vision of
the future. (*Intention may not be a desire for change, but also a
provocation of what could happen.)

5. RESOURCES: Humans’ designs are completely related to the type of

resources they’re able to use when creating an intentional or non-inten-
tional change. Resources can range from materials and people to skills.

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6.
TECHNOLOGY: Technology is tool and an enabler of desired
outcomes. It can be decisive in the adoption of change within any order
of design that we might be willing to interfere (note that big change
happens when we create a solution that encompasses all orders of
design with excellence).

Understanding in depth how humanity uses the power of design and also what
we can design is crucial for our next step in evolution.

Back to Richard Buchanan's four orders of design theory, we have already

mastered design within the communicational space (1st order) through
graphic, visual and communication design; the physical space (2nd order)
through product, environmental and industrial design, and we’re getting better
and better on the interaction space (3rd order) through interaction, digital,
behavioural and service design. But at the moment we’re embarking on a
digital and exponentially complex world which means we have to think and
design from a systemic perspective. And that is why, we all as designers, have
to take the next step and be able to appropriate the 4th order, the systems
space.

When entering a new world such as this enhanced digital world where virtual
reality and artificial intelligence lies, we feel like as if there’s an absence of
rules, methods and a complete sense of freedom; but it can also be scary.

Finally, as human-designers we have been really good at designing solutions

for our problems from the past but since we’re embarking on the next order of
design we might need to start thinking about designing the future... In this sense
and echoing Cedric Price as cited in Carlos Ratti and Mathew Claudel’s The City
of tomorrow: Sensors, Networks, Hackers, and the Future of Urban Life:

– “Like medicine, design needs to move from curative to the

preventive”; and, as humans, it's about being conscious that
we are designers of the past, present and future.

*This chapter is part of a series from Echos on

09
The Power of Design, written by Juliana Proserpio
 Natural X Artificial
Design
*(chapter 3) This chapter was written by Juliana Proserpio and
is part of a series from Echos on The Power of Design.

How would you describe what is artificial and what is natural?

A good exercise is to think about what is created by nature, and what is
created by humans. Could you say that farms are a result of nature? Or are
farms a result of human interference?
Herbert Simons believed that everything that had human interference is
artificial and anything that was generated only by nature is natural. This is a
great notion for categorising creations, but at the same time, I don't believe
that the products of humans or human interferences are un-natural.

Let me explain.
We are part of nature, and nature that creates nature is also nature, right? A
better way to characterising it would be the degrees of natural creation.
Or a better way of saying it would be that nowadays, there are four degrees of
naturality.

4 degrees
of naturality
1.
designed &
produced by nature.

2. designed by humans & produced by nature.

3. designed and produced by humans.

4. human designs designing by itself.

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The first being the creations that were generated exclusively
by nature like forests and oceans. The first degree is designed and
produced by nature.

The second degree would be creations that had human

interference, let's say, a human nudge, but was then
developed by nature (like farms). Another way of saying this would
be 'designed by humans and produced by nature.'

The third would be creations that were generated from

"artificial" creations of humankind, like plastic, cars, chairs,
and objects – the third degree is designed and produced by man. This
degree embraces everything from a lamp until our democratic system.

The fourth degree would be a generative creation like

artificial intelligence and machine learning. These creations are
designed and produced by humans, but the difference is that they are also
creators. The creation creates new products itself. A good example of this
degree is the movie Sunspring (2016), the first film written entirely by an
artificial intelligence named itself Benjamin and produced by humans.

For the first time, the  Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research unit
discovered that an artificial intelligence had created a new type of language
that humans wouldn’t understand.
The fourth degree of artificiality represents  designing and developing new
creations by itself like this artificial intelligence creating a new language. This
language is a result of a human design, designing and producing by itself.

We, as a society, can understand, measure, and regulate the first three
degrees of artificiality, but are we prepared for the fourth?

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I tend to believe that if anything happens, it is because we somehow are
already ready for it. The possibility of existence creates the possibility of
relating to it, but this doesn't mean that we fully and rationally understand this
new form of existence (like all new types of technologies, innovations or
disruptive designs).

Modern society usually tends to understand and accept only what it can be
regulated, but not the possibility of the new. New means that we don't know
how to respond, that it is unpredictable and that is what scares us.

As designers, we know more about the creation itself than the actual results,
and that is why one of the primary tools of designers is to prototype so that we
can test how the new will play out.

It's impossible to predict the outcome of something new without trying.

It's impossible to predict what still doesn't exist, and that is
why “the only way to predict the future, is to create it."
Quote from Abraham Lincoln.

Design theoretics says that the difference between scientists and designers is
that scientists focus on the discoveries of the reality of the world and
designers create what will become a reality (the future).

As a form of futurecraft, design has the potential to create preferred

conditions. As design evolves, we're designing and entering changes on
systemic level. But with all of this power, there's also a not-so-common topic:
the ethics of design and creation.

When creating new futures or new paradigms for society, there's always one
question at the back of my head. So what is right? Are we designing futures
based on bias?

Where should we draw the line of what is an ethical creation and what is not? 

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This is tricky because as known, an intention is not the only factor in it. A
creation with good intentions might become something bad, and a creation
with bad intentions might become something good.
The line of ethics of design is also hard to be drawn because as naturality
evolves, ethics also do, and we can't rely only on our past experiences to
design the ethics of the future.

The intention of designing for the good is beautiful and noble, but at the same
time, could be implicated with a lot of bias and contextual untruths.
My reflection on it is that as designers, we could always design, thinking
about a virtuous cycle  that  is  based on real needs; the downside of this
rationale is that if we’re only thinking about needs, we’re only thinking about
addressing the past.
The opposite way of framing it would be to design for intention, thinking about
the emergence of the new, but in this way of thinking, the rise of the new could
be biased.

The only way to go through this paradigm, in my opinion, would be to work 

with these two opposing perspectives, balanced at the same time, and to be
continually testing outcomes on a small scale before reaching expansion or
exponentiality.

When entering the action of designing preferred futures or even generative

design where your design will generate a new creation, all our bias can scale
Designing preferred futures and
and echo for good and for bad.
generative design are the next paradigm and challenge for
designers all around the world.

As design is constantly evolving, me and my colleague designers (with

classical design background or not) are also designing new methodologies and
techniques do embrace the new and design preferred futures. A new
framework that we are still testing out is based on three main factors:

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1. Social Need
2. Intention
3. Emerging technologies

Problem Desirable
(past) Future

Social need Emerging

6 causes
technologies

Vision of the future

(What we want to
achieve)
Intent

The social need is connected to humanity and the context of the society in the
present and the past. It's related to the values of humans and needs that are
important now creating a real meaning and connection to reality.

The intention is the value and direction of evolution and future craft that only
humans can envision. It's the enabler of change and disruption in the world.

Emerging technologies are our latest abilities to drive change the best way
we can. It's our constraint and enabler at the same time to venture and to
make a vision become a reality.

As humans and designers by birth, we can design desirable or not so desirable

futures, and so it is our responsibility to design better conscious futures.

*This chapter is part of a series from Echos on

14
The Power of Design, written by Juliana Proserpio