AIRTIME: All Things Big & Small
AIRTIME: All Things Big & Small
Insights into Lens Shifting - Understanding the Macro and the Micro.
Design, like many other sectors rooted in creativity, is evolving at a pace not previously seen. Designers of all fields are grappling with the effective integration of generative technologies into long-established processes, seeking to find the optimum balance of efficiency and intentionality.
The value of design has not diminished.
There is little doubt, however, that the perception of tangible design skills has been broadly impacted. Several typical hard skills, which were held with exclusivity by a proud global community, have been demystified and democratised.
Yet the craft of the industrial designer has always extended far beyond the conceptualisation and visualisation skills that previously shaped an easily justifiable hourly rate. It is now incumbent upon the community to impart with clarity the full value of the profession, including those skills which are more difficult to communicate.
One such skill, which I have sought to hone within myself as well as in others, is that which I call Lens Shifting. It is the ability to jump quickly and seamlessly between the macro and the micro of a given project.
The Macro: Full Picture Understanding
It is critical that designers fully understand and consider the larger jigsaw that their work will fit into; to use a maligned piece of corporate jargon: ‘big picture thinking’.
Perhaps a better phraseology for designers to align themselves to is ‘Full Picture Understanding’. It is an approach, and a highly impactful skill, which ensures designers create products and experiences that fit with a client’s broader objectives, and are produced with considered responsibility.
There will be strategic objectives that a client wishes to achieve with a new product launch – if these are neglected, we create something without the required value. Whether we are creating products to complement an existing brand DNA, or seeking to define a new direction, we need to understand and then approach the brief with mindful intent.
The environment the product will exist in is a stakeholder without a voice, and therefore we need to find ways to interpret the most important priorities from that stakeholder, without asking questions.
For industrial designers, utilising materials that in some cases will outlive the creator, the need to consider a realistic, responsible product lifecycle is also paramount.
The Micro: Details Define Success
Industrial design has always been about details. The way I have always thought about it is that we have to care about the details, because nobody else in the value chain will. That may sound somewhat cynical, but it’s a mindset that encourages taking full responsibility for our craft.
That is to say that the size of a radius, an optimised wall thickness, the stability with which a product stacks, the feeling of a textured surface or a breathable fabric – these are details which designers have always pored over, and that should never change.
Industrial designers need to inject this level of care and consideration into their process perhaps more than ever – as in our new-found world of automated efficiency, aesthetic adequacy satiates the masses, yet it should never hit our threshold for satisfaction. We must care more than that. Remember, aesthetics are a flashy fraction of the design process.
Communicating the need for such detailed design work is also of paramount importance. The products in our lives which we hold in the highest regard, those that feel ‘right’, where quality and functionality have not been compromised; those products were not created in happy accidents. They are the work of mindful, considerate, trained designers – who love the details.
Lens Shifting
And so, we come to defining one truly valuable skill of an experienced designer: the ability to quickly, seamlessly shift between these vastly different perspectives.
It can be viewed as ‘zooming in’ and ‘zooming out’ on a design challenge, repeatedly and intentionally.
The inherent value of Lens Shifting as a skill, is that it leads to fully considered, well-resolved design solutions in a short timeframe. Designers who master this allow macro insights to inform micro decision-making, and in some cases the micro details of a product can help shape a macro-level strategy. The perspectives work in synergy.
Lens Shifting in Aviation
The aviation industry presents a perfect landscape for the demonstration of these principles. As designers in the sector, we are consistently challenged with fragmented design briefs which are a window to larger, organisational objectives. Airlines, like all large corporates, have growth strategies, brand strategies, target demographics and sustainability goals. As designers in the space, if we understand these things, we can better serve our clients.
We zoom in, then we zoom out.
When we’re considering what exact wall thickness will ensure a product is lightweight without compromising durability, it is followed by questioning whether the client would consider implementing an end-of-life recycling program.
When we’re thinking about how a new comfort item will fit into a passenger experience improvement strategy, we’re subsequently thinking about what the texture of the fabric will feel like against the skin.
The ability to design products and experiences which work at multiple levels – for users, for organisations, for the planet – is not an ability one can automate. It’s not an ability that can be easily synthesised.
This is an example of value.
The value of design, which has not diminished.