I felt mentally challenged today. I haven't felt that way for awhile, not even back when I was in college (well, excluding ICS and ICS math related courses). It's tough to slow down the thinking process, to break things down step by step and to think why each object, each image, each item means what it means and how do designers design everything we see around us by consciously utilizing the symbols that are so familiar to us in the western culture; by manipulating the form the shape the color of those images/objects they are also manipulating how we read into something, and thus how we receive and understand the messages that these objects are sending across. Nothing is built or constructed by default, no mere accidents, everything is created with a very conscious effort of making sure a message is delivered. Each item has a meaning, each item is trying to communicate something whether it be political, cultural, spiritual, social, or gender related. It is symbolic, it is representational, and it is the result of diligently doing research and working on the project little by little, with incremental improvement until the final product is presented and approved (agreed by everyone). It is important that everyone can see something and agree on its meaning, if everyone can end up having different interpretation regarding an object then it isn't a design, it is just art.

I think the difficult part isn't to construct something that says what you want it to say, but it's the deconstruction that is mind boggling. I feel it is difficult for us b/c we don't really know and understand all the design principles, the organizing principles yet. We may know it innately about what a circle or a rectangle might represent b/c we are exposed to these messages on a daily basis, however to consciously talk about it, and discuss it is a different thing. For example we all know how we feel when we see the Getty Museum vs. the Disney Concert Hall, but to explain the differences with just one word, ONE "organizing principle" then it suddenly becomes sort of difficult. However it doesn't mean we don't know it, we know it, except we never had to explain it in the way that a designer would have to explain it. There are certain logic and languages that they use, it's like learning a new set of vocabulary and a new set of logic-- they are really not that difficult or foreign once we go back and forth with the question/answering like 100 times, but it is the process that's frustrating. Everyone knows how to describe that feeling, but no one was able to narrow it down to just one word... and that's what design is all about, it is building on one thing, it is expanding on one thing... and without clearly defining what that ONE thing is, then how can we have a successful design that clearly speaks about that one thing symbolically?

And then there's the whole color theory, it's just a lot of stuff that we are so familiar with since kindergarten yet none of us can say we really understand any of them in the way a designer or a color theorist would. So much knowledge and so much wisdom going into these subjects that we take for granted, it's amazing how much there is to know about every little detail! It's really quite fascinating and of course, challenging at the same time. I feel like I haven't learned anything new, anything interesting in a while and I'm just glad that my brain is finally getting the nutrients it needs again. As if it went on a vacation for the past couple of years... just really excited to be learning about something not quite new but something much more in depth than what I've learned in a long long time.