It would be beneficial to reject once and for all the idea of inspiration with its tendency to encourage the “artistic temperament” in the belief that it “does not feel like it.”
The designer must be ready to respond at any time, and this implies a logical and balanced mind, capable of grasping essentials, and conditions, and of evolving some desirable solution.
Another superstition is that a design is a drawing, and it only requires a facility in this form of expression to produce a design. This is a fallacy, as though many designs are for convenience expressed through this medium, any such drawing must be made with a knowledge of the technical details of the final method of production, to be a practical design.
Process and Material
Design is therefore inseparable from consideration of material and process, with which the designer must be acquainted; without this technical knowledge it is impossible to take full advantage of the method of production either in the direction of economy or effect.
Other considerations are utilitarian and æsthetic, the former having regard to purpose, the latter to appearance.
That mere utility is not in itself sufficient is evident; the common enamelled saucepan and the medicine bottle are certainly utilitarian, but no one would assert that they are satisfying from the æsthetic point of view.
An important consideration in design is the “market” which is governed by popular or individual demand.
Those who pay the piper call the tune, and the designer has often to work to prescribed conditions.
This apparently implies restriction of individuality, but the designer who refuses to conform will probably find the market even more restricted.