Design is the patterning and planning of any act toward a desired, foreseeable end... any attempt to separate design, to make it a thing-by-itself works, counter to the fact that design is the primary underlying matrix of life.
Interpretation
Design is an essential process that influences all aspects of life and should not be viewed in isolation.
In this quote, Victor Papanek emphasizes that design is not merely a separate discipline but a fundamental aspect of life that shapes our actions and outcomes. He argues that attempting to separate design from the broader contexts in which it exists undermines its role and significance, as design is inherently intertwined with all aspects of existence and decision-making.
In practice
In a presentation on the importance of holistic thinking in design processes.
We live in a society that penalizes highly creative individuals for their non-conformist autonomy. This makes the teaching of problem solving in design both discouraging and difficult. A...student (has) massive blocks against new ways of thinking, engendered by some 16 years of mis-education.
Design must be an innovative, highly creative, cross-disciplinary tool responsive to the needs of men. It must be more research-oriented, and we must stop defiling the earth itself with poorly-designed objects and structures.
There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a few.
The only important thing about design is how it relates to people.
If that voice that you created that is most alive in the poem isn't carried throughout the whole poem, then I destroy where it's not there, and I reconstruct it so that that voice is the dominant voice in the poem.
And your eyes must do some raining if you're ever gonna grow / When crying don't help, you can't compose yourself / It's best to compose a poem, an honest verse of longing / Or a simple song of hope.
The genuine music lover may accept the carnal husk of opera to get at the kernel of actual music within, but that is no sign that he approves the carnal husk or enjoys gnawing through it.
Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view.
Sometimes I wish I could walk up to my music for the first time, as if I had never heard it before.
What woeful stuff this madrigal would be, In some starved hackney sonneteer, or me! But let a lord once own the happy lines, How the wit brightens! how the style refines!
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