What is design in my opinion? (As explained to a 12th Class Student)

So, you want to know what design is. Its actually up to you. I can tell you what design is....in my opinion. So basically, design can be perceived in different ways by different people. Hence, design is relative. If I explain this to you this way, which obviously sounds boring, you could call it my bad design. But.... don't do it, else I won't tell you what design is....yes, in my opinion of course.


Hmmm...I actually am very bad with abstract nouns. Hence, I can put forth my view better, using examples. Design is generally associated with fashion as we all know. Hence, it is more associated with the aesthetic part of an object. Here, I'd like to mention an example. You have a mobile keypad and a keyboard. Which of the two types faster? The keyboard, right? It's got keys of the perfect size and I don't have to press the same key 4 time to get a 'S'. But which one has more aesthetic value? You could argue, but I'd say the mobile keypad. The shiny surface, backlights, the numbers using the same buttons, then even alphabets of different languages in the same little area, yet it looks so beautiful, doesn't it?
So if you see form, the mobile keypad is very beautiful. But if you want the primary function of typing English sentences fast, the keyboard is much better. There has been this fight, I hear, between advocates of form and those of function; it goes back a loooong time. I'd like to stun you a bit, if I may. The mobile keypad and a keyboard example stays. Which of the two do you think, will be better for someone who's just started using one? Searching for a key on the keyboard is a hell more difficult than to search for one on a mobile keypad. Yeah, there are about 101 keys on a keyboard just about 15 on a mobile keypad. Hell, the mobile keypad is called mobile rightly, it is much more mobile than a keyboard. Try slipping a keyboard down your pocket. If you could do that, you surely need a new pair of pants/a new pocket for your shirt, or you desperately need to head to the gym. (In any case, if you really tried slipping a keyboard down your pocket, you need a psychiatrist).

When I was in school, and even your age, I always thought, design started during Renaissance or say, the Industrial Revolution. But it goes much before the sophisticated human. Stone-age man knew the use of fire. You might have learnt that in history, I presume. You might know they used fire, outside their cave, to guard themselves from wild animals. After some thinking, I have to agree, that is great design! Stone-age man knew fire is dangerous and destructive. So did the other animals. Forest fire is really not a thing of only the modern era. So you have fire outside your cave. Not an animal will come closer. Here I say have fire, not light fire, because you don't surely know, whether stone-age man made fire all the time. He could have brought a burning branch from the tree.

Coming back to recent times, design is associated with a product. A tap, its a nice design. Regulating the water flow, with the size of the faucet staying the same. Pretty neat, isn't it?
So you can talk about all products, they seem to be a simple thing to you. But they were a revolution when they were invented. The light bulb turned a Tommy into a Sir Thomas Alva Edison. On a more serious note, he was a great inventor. He tried a number of other ways to make a light bulb. He realised the need for a domestic light bulb. And that is the first step in designing. Realising the need. And devoting yourself to finding the answer.

It doesn't end there though(Design is surely not an easy job, but unarguably the most interesting one). You need to find a solution which takes ethics into consideration too.
It should not be polluting the environment...people should survive and live to use it, no? Believe me, the rich can buy most things. Make something even the common man can own and use. And try your best to make it sustainable...a temporary solution is more of a mirage than an oasis. As I mentioned, design is not easy. Nothing is. But nothing is as creative, as brain-scratching, as soothing. As satisfying. [period]