Function & Beauty

When I was still a first year at design school, we had a drawing assignment where we had to draw functional objects scaled down & displayed in a printers tray. The point & value of the assignment completely escaped me and I learned precious little drawing wise, but it does stand out as the day I was challenged to think about the relationship between two fundamental design elements. I remember one of my lecturers (Kevin Brand) warning us against loosing the beauty of function when translating the objects and the printers trays into a unified drawing.

I struggled with this relationship for years as design student, industrial designer & lecturer (History & Theory of Design). I could recognise its truth in a sketchy way, but struggled to translate this into my own work seamlessly, or explain it to others.

Ironically, I did not really take my own advice & seek clues to this relationship outside the normal design field. It is only in my search to be a better wife, mother & Christian women that I am coming to see this relationship more clearly in the broader context, and I hope to share some of those insights for you here.

It is one of those truths that is validated every day as the objects around you grow in appeal when they work well, or leave a bad taste (or even repulse) when they don't. But the most recent revelation on this front was when I realised that the Bible says this applies to us as normal human beings too.

1 Peter 3:2-5 shows how women can acquire 'unfading beautify' through being who they were created to be (Mahaney 2004:149). Those of you who know me will realise that in this, I am definitely still a work in progress since 'gentle and quiet spirit' are not words I'd use to describe myself. It is widely recognised that design reflects our spirit so it should not be surprising then that I struggled to achieve the purity of functional beauty in most of my designs.

My focus was misguided. It is only with time that functional beauty is truthfully revealed, but perhaps the key to achieving it in our designs more consistently, is rather to looking beyond the object and rather focusing on the role we're creating it for, within the role we were created for. In this way, we can be better stewards of the creative gifts we've been given. What I find amazing is that this provides a framework not only for designing objects that are obviously functional (appliances etc.), but also other creative works such as fine art, or the symbolic carvings for the Tabernacle (communication design of sorts).

Over the next few blogs, I hope to go into more detail about the nature and source of our creativity, as well as its intended relationship within nature (hopefully relevant given COP17 etc.).

Mahaney, Carolyn. 2004. Feminine Appeal. USA: Crossway Books