What is art? What is design? These questions are complex and subjective. Art and design are personal experiences. Everyone has had the experience of loving what another dislikes, or growing to love something with more understanding and experience with the thing. Love at first sight is well known and powerful. These experiences all have one thing in common, the lover and the loved.
I believe the magic to art and design lies in the space between the lover and the loved. That power that brings the two together, one drawing the other to it, it just clicks. What is that? The power of connection is a sublime and wondrous thing. It makes the heart sing, magnetizes the eye, occupies the mind. As we are all coming back together, revel the connection. Connection was risky, a possible threat. Connection is a real power.
That brings me to the third rule of design: Mind your connections. I like applying this rule to life too. In art and design, the rule concerns the putting of two things together. It needs to be done thoughtfully and carefully. Often times this is the most critical element of design. The trend of designing things to fail uses this rule negatively. If only they used their superpowers for good instead of greed.
The connection of the cord, the handle, the button, the interface with the user, is crucial. How something feels in the hand, turns on, plugs in, stands up is essential to its use. The look of the cord coming out of the device and into the wall, the button is easy to find, the latch holds it closed, doesn't it? It's easy enough to just slap a cord/handle/button on anywhere. But where is the best place? How does it work? Back to the interface, the "in-between", what happens when the user and the used come together?
What happens when we all come back together? How are we going to reconnect? It matters. Let us all be good to our future selves, be kind, be grateful and gracious. Look forward, and to each other, mind your connections.
