The nature of intuition in design

Abstract

Our world today is becoming increasingly visual. Eye-catching advertisements, innovative products and fashionable clothes are manifestations from visuals such as sketches in its developed and ‘polished’ form. As such, there is a growing need for curriculum to be based on literacy, numeracy and ‘graphicacy’ where ‘graphicacy’ could be defined as communication in which words or mathematical notion alone is not sufficient. On the other hand, it is equally important for visual-spatial conceptualisation (‘visuacy’) to be honed and nurtured in a child to complement his competency in ‘graphicacy’. ‘Visuacy’ and ‘graphicacy’ are important cognitive developmental areas that reside in the domain on non-verbal thought and communication (Cross, Designerly ways of knowing. Springer, London, 2007). Design is an abstract spatial subject that is predominantly intuitive. It is often guided and shaped by the designer’s experience and self-thought that eventually results in a ‘sketching move’ that yields visual triggers spurring more cycles of such design intuition to take place. This chapter describes how novice designers are inducted into the act of designing through dialogically deconstructing complex shapes into design primitives.