Design decision making
IS Your INDECISION holding back YOUR DESIGN ability?
What can be worse than proudly standing up to present your final project, only to be confronted with harsh words form your critics?
When you find yourself agreeing with them, and wondering why you didn't do something about it when you had the chance.
If this situation sounds familiar, it might be comforting to know that despite what the critics say, the problem probably isn't your design skill, or your time management.
So what is holding you back?
Your decision making ability.
Do you find yourself Running out of time to complete
projectS to A LEVEL THAT MEETS YOUR EXPECTATIONS?
Many students put in the hours in the front end of a project - doing meticulous historic research, finding key precedents, combing over their sites. This is all good stuff - until you get so deep in these initial processes, that you find it difficult to climb out and start making your own design decisions.
“Great ideas are like buildings - they have many parts which are negotiated over time...”
Often you can waste months waiting for your project to 'come to you' - and still end up presenting a purple blob that looks like you thought it up in two days. It's not a surprise, really, because effectively you did! The worst part is that you probably didn't even realise that you were waiting and that all your research was really a distraction from design.
You can't improve until you put something forward for critique!
The truth is, that it is much easier to reflect on something, on anything and to understand the changes you could make, than it is to come up with the perfect thing first time. You can't improve until you put something forward for critique!
Great ideas are like buildings - they have many parts which are negotiated over time, they are true to concept, fine-tuned to the specifics of site, engaging with all the key variables or conditions of the brief, Great ideas will be strong enough to respond to - listen now, respond, not defend against - any queries thrown at it. But great designs, while in concept and development phases, are also malleable - open to reconfiguration, rethinking, and change. No one gets it perfect first time - so get cracking make a decision, and see where it takes you.
Wondering How you can get better at making decisions?
I've put together a list of the 4 Steps to making design decisions. Have a read, commit to give it a go - you've got nothing to lose! Better yet, share with a friend and be each other's accountability partners by checking in on each other's decisions.
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