When you look around you, almost everything you see has been designed in some way by somebody, the shoes you wear, the streets you walk, the furniture in your house, the car you travel to work in each morning. It looks the way it does and functions in the way it does because of a series of conscious and careful decisions made by its designer/s. Abstract: The Art Of Design is a Netflix series all about the subject of design and how things are designed.
The documentary series is made up of eight episodes, each addressing a different type of design. The one I will discuss in this blog post is on Interior Design. This episode centres around British designer Llse Crawford and her design process and approach. Llse Crawford designs spaces ranging from high end hotels to Ikea furniture, all of which focus on engaging the human senses and promoting well-being. It is arguably very easy for designers to get caught up with the aesthetics of their work and lose track of why they're creating a concept in the first place, but Crawford states that 'empathy is a corner stone of design' and that 'ultimately design is a tool to benefit humanity'. This ethos of always designing with the needs and the well-being of the user at the forefront of the mind is something I admire and aspire to adopt in my own practice.
In the episode Llse Crawford talks about how ,although she has a developed and confident understanding of her design language, she needs to 'make sense of it through writing'. As a former columnist for Elle Decoration, Crawford is used to writing about design and describes how it helps her to process the concept and the purpose behind her work, and helps others to understand her work also. Personally, I get the impression that I have a similar approach to writing about my work as Crawford does. Writing helps me to articulate my ideas and convey my design concepts in a meaningful and academic way as well as fuelling my interest in design journalism.
The one criticism I would have for this documentary is that it shows a very glamorous, 'glossy magazine' version of what design is. There was no controversy, no mention of how real social and environmental issues are being tackled in the world of interior design, no mention of what a competitive business it or what terrible media publicity it has traditionally gotten . Instead it resembled a portfolio for Llse Crawford, a very good one, but a portfolio just the same. It didn't feature the rest of the design team working for her, or her designs that were dismissed or turned down. However, despite this I found this episode of Abstract: The Art Of Design to be very interesting and thought provoking. It renewed my enthusiasm for Interior Design and gave me an insight in to the creative visions of a leading designer.
The one criticism I would have for this documentary is that it shows a very glamorous, 'glossy magazine' version of what design is. There was no controversy, no mention of how real social and environmental issues are being tackled in the world of interior design, no mention of what a competitive business it or what terrible media publicity it has traditionally gotten . Instead it resembled a portfolio for Llse Crawford, a very good one, but a portfolio just the same. It didn't feature the rest of the design team working for her, or her designs that were dismissed or turned down. However, despite this I found this episode of Abstract: The Art Of Design to be very interesting and thought provoking. It renewed my enthusiasm for Interior Design and gave me an insight in to the creative visions of a leading designer.
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