Design and Engineering

Given the longstanding intellectual border war between art and design, it's curious that there is not an equal amount of discussion on the overlap between design and engineering.

In part, this may be because the difference between design and engineering is seen to be largely a settled matter: designers make things look good; engineers make them work.

In this neatly divided world, the designer descends from the artist.

Tibor Kalman framed this view eloquently back in 1990, declaring the designer as "the representative almost a missionary, of art, within the world of business."

As much as I've always wanted that phrase on my business card, Kalman's view of design here is Romantic, both in its contrast of art to commerce, and in its suggestion of the near holy sanctity of the designer's "missionary" creative spirit.

Just as this traditional view creates a stark contrast between the designer and business, it also sets apart the designer and the engineer, who presumably descends from the scientist.

Ultimately, the traits that are seen to divide engineering and visual design are based in foundational stories about the irrational and rational sides of human nature itself.

The professions are avatars of the right-brain, left-brain split; Apollo and Dionysius; Othello and Iago.

While these are powerful archetypes, I believe that after years of close coexistence, their DNA has begun to blend.

And in mutation, there is hope.