Following the expression of a conceptualist’s thoughts by an articulator, the designer steps in to refine the concept into a format more easily materialized. It is rare that the thoughts of a conceptualist can be conveyed without refinement and this is all the more so with greater degrees of complexity and novelty.

It makes sense really. If a person were to be the necessary materials and told to build a bow, even if the person were to know what a bow is he or she would more likely than not be hard-pressed to  produce one, lacking the knowledge required to do so. A designer is a person who not only possesses such knowledge but is able to express it in a format that the artisan can understand and that is why the designer is essential to the creative process.

If the conceptualist produces the abstract generalities of a concept then a designer, or planner, takes that concept and gets into all the details necessary in order to facilitate the making of that concept to be a reality, short of actually taking steps to create it. Hence a designer would consider the concept of a bow and would look into the materials, the shape, the draw cord, the bonding and all other things to be considered making the concept of a bow a reality. Not only that, but also the dimensions, the thickness, length, quantities, the expected performance indicators and more. All just in the design of a budding concept refinement for a bow.

While a conceptualist can afford to be broad and somewhat general in scope the designer is far more likely to be precise and specific. That being said, a great deal of conceptualists also dabble in design. While the product of a designer can compensate for the lack of a suitable articulator it often is not an adequate substitute.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 9:43 pm and is filed under A matter of perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.