TITLE: Patterns Books, But No Software To Be Seen
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: April 09, 2005 3:40 PM
DESC: Some artists face client demands, time limits, budget restrictions, and a host of material and style limitations. It's no surprise that they seek patterns of successful products, too.
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BODY:
On the flight home from
ChiliPLoP,
I read a review of a patterns book -- though
neither the book's title nor the review itself
ever used 'patterns'. And it isn't a software
book; it's on graphic design. The book is
Problem Solved: A Primer for Design
and Communication,
by Michael Johnson.
The review begins with a quote from the book
that distinguishes artists from designers:
[While] a fine art student can get away
with creating his or her own problems to
solve, a communications student is usually
handed someone else's, with a looming
deadline thrown in.
Designers create, but what they create is
usually circumscribed by the needs of a
client, and the act of creation itself is
circumscribed by limitations of time and
budget, style and material. Of course,
limitations don't eliminate the need for
creativity. In fact,
they may enhance creativity.
But working in the presence of limitations
means that designers are also problem
solvers.
Problem Solved addresses the needs
of designer-as-problem-solver by compiling
"a typology ... of kinds of problems" and
identifies "trustworthy, time-saving means
to address those problems." Each section
of the book focuses on a particular kind of
communication problem, such as how to use
a historical style in a "fresh" way or how
to resolve ethical dilemmas. Each problem
is
summed up by a memorable heading that
(consistent with the samples shown) is
both surprising and suitable.
This sounds like a patterns catalog, and
the headings and photo illustrations that
lead its sections sound a lot like the
iconic photos that Alexander uses to evoke
his patterns.
I'd think that graphic design is an area
ripe for mining patterns. I also wonder
to what extent Alexander's work has had
an effect in design disciplines outside
of architecture and software. One of
my favorite non-software patterns projects
was a crossover:
Rosemary Michelle Simpson's
work on patterns of information structure
indices. (Rosemary is a master indexer
and created the indices for many of the
best-known patterns and java books.)
I read this book review in the Autumn 2004
issue of Ballast Quarterly Review.
The editor, publisher, and primary writer
of Ballast is Roy Behrens, a design
professor at the University of Northern Iowa.
This little journal is a pastiche of passages
from books, witty quotes, curious illustrations,
and book reviews, with bias toward the arts.
Check it out
-- it'll only cost you a few postage stamps.
Oh, and this issue of Ballast did
review a book with the word 'pattern' in the
title:
DPM: Disruptive Pattern Material.
DPM is an encyclopedia of camouflage
in nature, the military, and culture. The
title of this book is just what I want
some of my own work
to be... :-)
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