Hey Guys,
Last week I was having discussion in class together with all students and lecturer about a term "Form follows Function" or "Function follows Form". After done some research here's what I got to elaborate more those two terms.
Based on Wiki Form follows Function can be defined as a principle associated with modern architecture and industrial design in the 20th century. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.
Alright to be honest, I am still blur of that definition, so let me break down that sentence:
What is Form?
Based on my research I got the idea that Form is about the overall look and aesthetic sense of what you get from one design. Form can easily understand by looking at the idea of designer choose the color, font, size, images, and any other element design. All graphic element design can be categorized as form.
What is Function?
Function is the purpose of the piece whether it is to sell, to inform or educate, to impress, or to entertain.or can easily understand Function is the objective or the goal of each product or design.
Form follows Function or Function follows Form.
In a theory which has been applied since a long time ago, people will always follow the rule of "Form follows Function". This theory can be described as an oldschool theory that considering a lot about Functionally above everything. They will think about Functionally over Usability, Ergonomics, and Aesthetics.
Then how about designer creative thinking way? It's kind of ridiculous for designer to think less about the aesthetic. Let me give you an example, let's say I am a web-designer, in order to create the design looks pretty , has a good mood or "cute look" of my website I choose TW Cent MT as my font type for that design, But the questions are: Is that font (TW Cent MT) a standard font?” In other words, does everyone have installed that font? Then I will come back and re-think about my design that has limitation when I want to sell or show it to public, and yes again I will repeat and saying loudly the rule of "Form follow Function" :) :)
So I conclude in order to be creative which think out of the box, we still have to think the limitation or the goal of what we produce. we can not just use our ego to create what we want without considering of our goal and our target audiences!!
There some important considerations of what we should think when we want to create something. Based on the article by Jacci Howard Bear from About.com, he listed down those considerations:
Alright to be honest, I am still blur of that definition, so let me break down that sentence:
What is Form?
Based on my research I got the idea that Form is about the overall look and aesthetic sense of what you get from one design. Form can easily understand by looking at the idea of designer choose the color, font, size, images, and any other element design. All graphic element design can be categorized as form.
What is Function?
Function is the purpose of the piece whether it is to sell, to inform or educate, to impress, or to entertain.or can easily understand Function is the objective or the goal of each product or design.
Form follows Function or Function follows Form.
In a theory which has been applied since a long time ago, people will always follow the rule of "Form follows Function". This theory can be described as an oldschool theory that considering a lot about Functionally above everything. They will think about Functionally over Usability, Ergonomics, and Aesthetics.
Then how about designer creative thinking way? It's kind of ridiculous for designer to think less about the aesthetic. Let me give you an example, let's say I am a web-designer, in order to create the design looks pretty , has a good mood or "cute look" of my website I choose TW Cent MT as my font type for that design, But the questions are: Is that font (TW Cent MT) a standard font?” In other words, does everyone have installed that font? Then I will come back and re-think about my design that has limitation when I want to sell or show it to public, and yes again I will repeat and saying loudly the rule of "Form follow Function" :) :)
So I conclude in order to be creative which think out of the box, we still have to think the limitation or the goal of what we produce. we can not just use our ego to create what we want without considering of our goal and our target audiences!!
There some important considerations of what we should think when we want to create something. Based on the article by Jacci Howard Bear from About.com, he listed down those considerations:
- Who is the target audience and what are their expectations?
- Is the design supposed to sell a tangible product or an idea?
- Is it to develop goodwill, create branding, or public awareness about a company, an event, an issue?
- What is the budget for this project? What quantity of this design is needed?
- How will this project be distributed - by mail, door-to-door, in person, as part of a magazine, newsletter, newspaper, or book?
- What action is the recipient likely to take with the piece - throw it away, stick on the wall, file for reference, pass it around, fax it around, put it on a shelf?
- What elements are required by the client - specific colors, specific fonts, specific images?
After we understand all the considerations as our parameters and limitations, then we can use our creative way to design a product with concerning aesthetic simultaneously with function. :)
Cheers!
2 comments:
Hey guys these are the comments that I received when I repost this article on my personal site( http://www.arthurandesya.com/blog/2010/11/18/form-follows-function-in-designing/ )
From: Kamil
hi tur! can’t help to comment hehe
if you look at architecture history a bit further, adolf loos coined the term “ornamentation is a crime” which sums up how modernist thinks. this closely relates to modernist’s glorification of functionality above all else, especially aesthetic. so form follow function, i think, means that you shouldn’t just arbitrarily create a form without first thoroughly understanding what you are going to use that form for.
for example, as far as computer goes, remember the days when “skinning” a program was all the rage? remember the music program Winamp? Hell, even windows media player could be skinned at one time. at one point everyone loved putting new look and “individualized” their program, but it died very quickly too as everybody also found out how awkward many of the design is by putting the buttons in awkward places. in a glance they look good, but when usability is taken into consideration, they fail.
but there also has been critiques to modernism and its form follows function dogma. i’m sorry i can’t give you non architectural examples, but in general post modernism brought the backlash against the dullness form follow function has created. as designers gone mental designing everything in functional term, people started adding a bit of decoration that is more or less arbitrary. why? just because. form follow function is a very rational approach, and the subsequent philosophy that it spewed (as far as architecture goes) were approaches that we now consider as crazy such as deconstruction, blob, and so on.
in a way, it has brought back “humanity” into designing. of course, we must always consider functionality when designing, but at the same time the arbitrariness of us being human could make design more interesting. the boxes of modernism doesn’t really connect with humanistic approach of playfulness, spontaneity, craziness, and other adjectives that describe our want to live without a stringent rule of “efficiency”.
and this is another comment that I received from my personal site also regarding this article. hope it can enhance our knowledge about this matter of Form follow Function ( http://www.arthurandesya.com/blog/2010/11/18/form-follows-function-in-designing/ )
From: Keisha
Hi Arthur! How’ve you been?
Well, looking through your posts I honestly can’t help to contribute more on this one.
…but I believe this comment is much related to “Less is More”.
Modernists started their “simplified” designing when decorative movements such as Arts&Crafts, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, etc reigned the era of art and design world. The problem with these movements is that not everyone had great taste therefore the artworks became very much Kitsch-like. Simplifying the history, as Kamil has elaborated;
Industrialization era (Post WW I) = mass production of goods, same styling/materials
Arts & Crafts, Aesthetic Movements, etc. (Post-Industrialization era) = A rebellion against industrialization, introducing home-made crafts where each artwork’s unique as they are.
The result, however, was overwhelming decorations and Kitsch.
Bauhaus School (Pre WW II) = Modernist thinking, form follows function, designing effectively and inexpensively of which then disbanded by the Nazis as Adolf Hitler was more keen on “traditional art”. During this period, art styles such as Abstract Expressionism were deemed “Entartete Kunst” or in literal translation “Degenerate Art”.
Radical Design (Post WW II), and Post-Modernism = Originated in Italy, this movement (Radical Design) was created by local groups, rejecting the idea of modernism, afraid that it would destroy local cultural heritage, as modernism promotes unanimous design.
Today, we’re very much stuck between Modernist vs. Post-Modernist thinking, with benchmark on Bauhaus lecture. So sadly, there will be nothing new in the design world, I suppose.
Cheers!
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