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Concept
Design tool
Summary
Design tools are objects, media, or computer programs, which can be used to design. They may influence the process of production, expression and perception of design ideas and therefore need to be applied skillfully.
New ideas can come by way of experimenting with tools and methods. Some designers explore ideas using pencil and paper. Others use many different mark-making tools and resources from computers to sculpture as a means of inspiring creativity. Traditionally, objects like pencil, compass, ruler, drawing triangle have been considered design tools and have been used to characterize design and designers. One reason for the success of traditional design tools such as pencil and paper is that these tools can be used without any special knowledge and their usage facilitates a continuous flow of thoughts.
The appropriate development and presentation tools can substantially change how an audience perceives a project. The media used for design can be divided in two categories, visual and verbal. Conventionally, in areas like architecture, industrial design, or graphic design, visual media are considered more important than verbal media. In other areas like engineering, the use of verbal design media may be prevalent.
Visual design tools are, for example, gesture, sketch, drawing, scale model, perspective drawing, photograph, film, video. Eugene S. Ferguson's 1977 paper in Science, entitled "The mind's eye: Nonverbal thought in technology", is credited for clarifying the role of visual reasoning in the thinking process. In this article he reasoned that "Thinking with pictures is an essential strand in the intellectual history of technological development." He concludes his article with the following statement:
Much of the creative thought of the designers of our technological world is nonverbal, not easily reducible to words; its language is an object or a picture or a visual image in the mind. It is out of this kind of thinking that the clock, printing press, and snowmobile have arisen.
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