Concept
This note from PC alum Miti Desai, now a designer in Mumbai, gives this quarter’s Design History class a new way to think about ‘concept’ as they continue the process of designing their chairs:
The concept is a base which comes from the union of your thoughts (which is your story) and the ‘what it is’ that you want to communicate through it. What is the one thing that you want to communicate and express through this? That will ultimately give you the concept. It’s just like child birth: a union leads to conception, but conception is not the child. The concept has to be nurtured for a while till it comes alive. And as with childbirth, at any time there is the danger of miscarriage or even stillbirth…what happens between conception and birth is very important.
So you need a base concept—a union of your thoughts and the message you want to give. The concept is the ESSENCE; it does not have to say your story at all. But it has to convey the essence of your story. The story you have written is about an INNER VOICE, which all have…but it’s a matter of knowing how to listen to it.
With this said, I urge you to EXPLORE, EXPERIENCE and EXPRESS.
To COMMUNICATE at the fullest is to make the viewer EXPERIENCE at the fullest.
Enjoy.
Miti.
