I think the Wikipedia article best sums up the overarching nature of design as “the management of constraints.” I think design, at it’s core, almost always means the same thing; Attempting to arrive at a solution that adheres to the given constraints. Using the word ’solution’ implies the existence of a problem, but I’m being incredibly loose with the definition of ‘problem’ and using it as more of a ‘desire’. The difference between “mindless prettiness” (art is significantly serendipitous, but I can hardly call it mindless) and things like “process design,” is the form to which the design is being applied.

If we are to believe that making things “look good” is entirely separate from influencing the course of world events, does that entirely discount the intellectual attractiveness of elegant solutions? Does a harmonious process not resemble a melody produced by the unification of a complex symphony into a simple whole? The question then, is were does design fall in relationship to art? I’d like to think that design is the application of abstract creativity to solve problems from any arena of human understanding.

At this point my brain is entering a nebulous inner space, shooting the tendrils of this thought process into other areas in a desperate attempt to bring in tangents, analogies, and various other digressions that need not come into this. To sum it up with the conclusion I seem to have reached: The differentiation between areas of design is in the application, but it is never a non-creative endeavor.