EDITOR Hugh Dubberly hugh@dubberly.com
Dubberly Design Office | hugh@dubberly.com
In the early 20th century, our understanding of physics changed rapidly; now our understanding of biology is undergoing a similar rapid shift.
Freeman Dyson wrote: “It is likely that biotechnology will dominate our lives and our economic activities during the second half of the twenty-first century, just as computer technology dominated our lives and our economy during the second half of the twentieth [ 1].”
Recent breakthroughs in biology are largely about information—understanding how organisms encode it, store, reproduce, transmit, and express it—mapping genomes, editing DNA sequences, mapping cell-signaling pathways.
Changes in our understanding of physics, accompanied by rapid industrialization, led to profound cultural shifts: changes in our view of the world and our place in it. In this context, modernism arose. Similarly, recent changes in our understanding of biology are beginning to create new industries and may bring another round of profound cultural shifts: new changes in our view of the world and our place in it.
Already we can see the process beginning. Where once we described computers as mechanical minds, increasingly we describe computer networks with more biological terms—bugs, viruses, attacks, communities, social capital, trust, identity.
digital displays, and printers) have altered the pace of production and the nature of specifications. But production tools have not significantly changed the way designers think about practice. In a sense, graphic designer Paul Rand was correct when he said, “The computer is just another tool, like the pencil [ 2],” suggesting the computer would not change the fundamental nature of design.
But computer-as-production-tool is only half the story; the other half is computer-plus-network-as-media.
Changes in the media that designers use (the Internet and related services) have altered what designers make and how their work is distributed and consumed. New media are changing the way designers think about practice and creating new types of jobs. For many of us, both what we design and how we design are substantially different from a generation ago.
[ 1] Dyson, Freeman. “The Question of Global Warming.” New Yorker 55, no. 10 (June 2008).
[ 2] Rand, Paul. Personal conversation with author during a visit to the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, Calif., 1993.
Over the past 30 years, the growing presence of electronic information technology has changed the context and practice of design.
Changes in the production tools that designers use (software tools, computers, networks,
Emerging design practice is largely information based, awash in the technologies of information processing and networking. Increasingly, design shares with biology a focus on information flow, on networks of actors operating at many levels, and exchanging the information needed to balance communities of systems.
Modern design practice arose alongside the industrial revolution. Design has long been tied to manufacturing—to the reproduction of objects in editions or “runs.” The cost of planning and preparation (the cost of design) was small compared with the cost of tooling, materials, manu-
September + October 2008
References:
Archives