Design Defined

Coco Chanel’s little black dress. An Apple iPhone. A paperclip.

It’s easy enough to explain what these disparate objects share in common: they’re design classics.

The question is: how do we define good design? If we were able to distill the enduring qualities that all design classics share, what somethings would we hold in our hands?

To us, good design is a creative process involving the disciplined execution of a meticulous plan to produce something that precisely fits its intended purpose. No more, no less.

The somethings we bring to life through the design process share four qualities:

• Elegance The creative process of design generally produces physical beauty, aesthetic sophistication or conceptual elegance
• Improved efficiency Good design produces things that work better but only use resources sparingly
• Appropriateness Good design works well in the real world with minimum impact on the environment
• Success Good design sells successfully and it is easily adopted by the people and organisations that buy it.

Design is the tool that we use to continuously reshape the world around us. So good design is not always tangible: we also design services, experiences and polices.

Nor is good design necessarily innovative. The best solutions are sometimes quite mundane.

Good design isn’t always pretty, either. Sometimes, producing an appropriate design does not demand physical beauty.

Good design is not always widely popular. What matters is that it is popular with the people it is intended for.

Which is why some people will always love Chanel, others will always love Apple – and we’ll all love the humble paperclip.