reading # 2 Introduction, perspective, exercises 1-16

This book begins with a map of the process a designer will take on their journey from the world of imagination. The Introduction describes this journey by explaining that we are surrounded by design everyday, everywhere we go. The design process is a relationship that is built up of different stages. These stages include: inspiration, identification, conceptualization,exploration and refinement,definition/modeling and communication and production.

Stage one opens up with the idea of inspiration. There must be a force that drives a person to create. In order to produce a great end result the motivation behind the idea should be strong. Inspiration comes to people in many ways, shapes and forms and its up to us as designers to take the time to find it and understand it. The following pages talk about the author of this book Karl Aspelund. Aspelund graduated from Wimbledon in London as a costume designer. He describes to us the reader experiences he encountered working as a designer in many different fields. He has become inspired to teach design so that it can be shared by many people not just the elites. He has been inspired by so many people and chooses to continue to inspire others. 

Pages 13-16 take about exercises. The first exercise is to come up with a design journal where we can write ideas, thoughts, concepts down and keep clippings we like. We are asked to decide on a format for our journal and choose some sort of small sketch book. The book then describes the process of reverse designing which means to choose an object as close as possible to the one we intend to design and trace its progress backward through the seven stages beginning with production. In order to traces these steps we need to write in our journals, use clippings, sketches and illustrations. The more questions we create for ourselves the more material we will have to work with.