Finding a Design Balance

In this Arc'Teryx video, we follow a designer through his process as he talks about his design philosophies. He says some interesting things that I think pertain directly to design research and specifically design synthesis. In the Jon Kolko talk I posted on Thursday, he talks about design synthesis as an essential, however often overlooked, step in the design process. Synthesis, as he says, is taking the things we've learned from our research and filtering them through our own personal experience to form insights. In this video, the designer talks about how his personal experience and natural environment inform his design decisions.

A huge part of planning and researching for in design is the product. Function first, and then simplicity. During the stages of research and discovery, maintaining a mindset of simplicity and function will help inform the things you take from your research during design synthesis. If you don't plan to make a simple product, and remind yourself of the importance of simplicity throughout all the planning stages of the design process, how can you design simple solutions? "Design is a mindset."