Sign, Design, Communication - Principia Designae: Pre-Design, Design, and Post-Design - page 27

3.4 Design Relationship

Design does not stand-alone: it includes many facets that give rise to communication
and interpretation. We often design something using former products or processes as
a model. Moreover, designers often quote former designs and design plans. Design
stands between the former and the following, and the real and the imagined,
which may include projected but uncompleted designs that have never been
evaluated. We can call this aspect of design 'inter-design', which relates itself to
'pre-design'. In the pre-design phase, communication occurs that may drive actors
toward the conception of a new design.
A designmay be criticized or interpreted during its conception. We call this 'meta-
design', which has two phases. First, if a design is simply situated in relationship to a
former product, it is considered as a process of 'post-design'. Conversely, if the
design produces another inter-design series in another system, it becomes 'proper
meta-design'. A meta-design can be a transformed referential design—partially or
totally, sincerely or playfully (e.g., pastiche, parody), and so on. Since the avant-
garde movement, contemporary art defines itself based neither on the imitation of
nature nor on the beauty that justifies traditionally beautiful art. It refers not to its own
content, but to its form and preceding works. As a result, recent artwork has become
more and more self-reflexive, reflecting an infinite meta-design character. Such self-
reflexive repetition/iteration of art will form nonlinear, disseminating time series.
Design tends to leave marks that classify itself. For example, an artistic design
often includes the author's name or a distinct title, or sometimes even an intentional
“Untitled.” An untitled work is often conceived of with the purpose of escaping the
power of language and fully developing its own form of expression, so that the idea
of being “untitled” functions as the title itself. On the other hand, technological
design sometimes includes only the brand or product name. These considerations
fall under what we call the “para-design” phase, which also has two facets: outer
space and inner space. The former includes, for example, interviews or reviews, and
the latter includes titles and the author's name (Fig. 3.1 ). Both facets tread a path
toward social communication (Genette 1982 ).

communication

Design
sign

Post-
design

Pre-
design

Para-
design

Fig. 3.1 Design
relationship and
communication

Inter-design Meta-design