Design as meaning formation: Western and Eastern approaches

Tretyakova Mariya Sergeevna ORCID: 0000-0001-7385-6609 PhD in Art History Associate Professor; Department of Graphic Design; Ural State University of Architecture and Art Karl Liebknecht str., 23, Sverdlovsk region, Yekaterinburg, 620075, Russia mashanadya@gmail.com Other publications by this author

Kazakova Natal'ya Yur'evna ORCID: 0000-0003-0006-1412 Doctor of Art History Professor; Department of 'System Design'; Kosygin Russian State University 119071, Russia, Moscow, Malaya Kaluzhskaya str., 1 Kazakova-nu@rguk.ru

Since the 1980s, design has been thought through the prism of "language" and meanings, however, today the purely "linguistic approach" in design in the West has exhausted itself, therefore, design theorists and practitioners are actively searching for an alternative path, which largely intersects with the direction in which the regional approach is now taking shape in the East.

The purpose of the article is to summarize some results of the alternative "textual" understanding of design in the West and in the East within the framework of the paradigm of "design as meaning formation". In the course of studying the Western approach, we will first of all be interested in the difference between the "semiotic" and "semantic" approaches. In the course of studying the Oriental, there is a difference between the Chinese and Japanese alternative vision of design.

Note that we adhere to the position that design is a "product of Western thinking", genetically related to the ancient idea of usually passive matter, which is creatively transformed by a person endowed with reason. In a narrower sense, it is a "product of the culture of modernism", which, nevertheless, is "capable of transformation" ^{[1, pp.56-57]}. Many authors have written about the changeability of design: G. Julier ^[2], K. Krippendorf ^[3], V. F. Sidorenko ^[4] and others.

Historicity in the understanding of design allows us, firstly, to perceive design not just as a fashionable phenomenon, but as a field of activity with deep cultural roots and regional specifics, and, secondly, brings us to the question of the current state of design, which, in our opinion, lies in the interaction of eastern and Western approaches, because, although design originated in the West, once it got to the East, it began to change – a new, alternative vision of design began to form, largely coinciding with the attempts of Western design theorists and practitioners to overcome the established idea of design design as the creation of a "text".

The supposed novelty of our study is not only to state the variability of design over time in the West, but also to show its variability in the context of regional specifics. And although many people have studied regional design in our country (V. R. Aronov ^[5], V. F. Runge ^[6], S. M. Mikhailov ^[7], N. A. Koveshnikova ^[8], etc.), we still almost do not find studies on the global role of the East in modern "design theory".

1.1 Design as a "transformable" product of modernist rationality. From "form follows function" to "form follows meaning".

The quintessence of the Western modernist understanding of design can be considered the definition that in 1964 at the international conference ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) was given by the rector of the Higher School of Shaping in Ulm, T. Maldonado: "Design is a form–making activity, the purpose of which is to determine the formal qualities of industrial products. These qualities include the external features of the products, but mainly the structural and functional connections that turn the product into a single whole, both from the point of view of the consumer and from the point of view of the manufacturer" ^{[1, p. 21]}. Back then, the word "design" meant only "industrial" design.

As can be seen from this definition, the most important characteristic of design was originally integrity. In addition, the fact that the form has a "logic", conditioned by function and structure, shows the rational nature (previously it was said, meaningfulness) of design activity. To this should be added the ideality of the design image ^{[9, p.16]} despite the fact that the design itself has always been practice-oriented.

Let's mention another "formula" that once defined design – this is the "unity of benefit and beauty" that goes back to the ideals of antiquity. Of the earliest authors, K. M. Kantor (1922-2008) wrote about the unity of benefit and beauty in design: "Thanks to his [designer's] participation, utilitarian and aesthetic design goals merge. As a result, an object with both practical and aesthetic properties becomes a product of design" ^{[10, p. 152]}. By "aesthetics" K. M. Kantor understood precisely "beauty", the book itself was called "Beauty and Benefit" (1967). Sidorenko V. F. also wrote that design arose "as a utopia of bridging the gap between Beauty and Benefit" in the design culture (1990) ^{[4, p.1]}. Today, when the concept of beauty has blurred, it has become difficult to talk about design as a unity of benefit and beauty.

The fact that the understanding of design is changing has been written for quite a long time. Probably the most famous author who wrote about this is Guy Julier: "... design has moved from artistic problem-solving activities to a more complex model", "shifted towards the value of intangible aspects of design products" ^{[2, pp.23, 40]}. Mr. Julier links these changes, among other things, with changes in the economy, with the transition from Fordism (where mass production and standardization are important) to post-Fordism (where individualization, customization, etc.).

Klaus Krippendorf, a graduate of the Higher School of Shaping in Ulm, defined design as "giving [things] meaning" back in 1989 ^{[11, p.67]}. Later, in 2006, in the book "Semantic Turn. The new foundation of design" he described a "paradigm shift", which represents "a transition from technology-oriented design of the industrial era to human-oriented design of the post-industrial era" ^{[12, p.16]}. In the introduction to the above work, K. Krippendorf B. Archer confirms that the idea of a "semantic turn" states a paradigm shift in design ^{[12, p.12]}.

In our country, V. F. Sidorenko wrote about changing the paradigm of project culture, understanding modernism as the "aesthetics of identity" (the identity of the "I" and the world, when the "I" of the designer is in the center, he strives to know the truth), postmodernism as the "aesthetics of non–identity" (when the designer seeks to comprehend other meanings) and The subsequent aesthetics are described as the "aesthetics of completion". "If truth is aesthetically experienced in the aesthetics of identity, meaning is experienced in the aesthetics of non-identity, then beauty is aesthetically experienced in the aesthetics of completion," he wrote ^{[4, p.26]}.

Naturally, the design definitions themselves began to change over time. In this regard, the definition given in the period 2011-2021 by G. N. Lola is indicative: "Design is the communicative practice of constructing an iconic product capable of creating a situation of impression" ^{[13, p.44]}, that is, a design product "must have an impression structure and be constructed as an event" ^{[13, p.14]}. Although G. N. Lola represents a different line of design theorists in relation to VNIITE (that is, not designers, but specialists from other fields), there are two notable points in it. Firstly, the author does not call design "activity", breaking with the tradition of the 1960s, including the tradition of the "activity approach" by G. P. Shchedrovitsky, and, secondly, the author thinks of design as a balance of rational and irrational, as an intuitively rational practice that has a "structure" It is "constructed", but it follows not the function, but the meanings, the impression.

It should be noted that the aesthetics of modernism (including the 1960s) relied on abstract art, mainly denying imagery and decor, which had a strong influence on design. The following comment from the "Methods of Artistic Construction" (1983) is indicative in this regard: "Falsely understood imagery (when, for example, a vacuum cleaner is given the appearance of a space rocket) leads to the substitution of genuine design with decoration" ^{[9, p.15]}. Today, if a teapot in the form of a soccer ball is successfully sold, the designer's goal has been achieved.

Such a change in the understanding of design is due to the fact that in the conditions of postmodernism, there was a rejection of any meta-narratives, of any immutable truths, and the concept of true and false imagery became relative. And although we still take into account the laws of composition in design, today the witty is often more valuable. So, we are not talking about advertising that it is "beautiful" – what is more important is that it is catchy, it is witty. Let's illustrate this with the example of two posters (Figure 1).

The first poster belongs to J. Muller-Brockman (1914-1996), a representative of the so-called "Swiss style". Muller-Brockman developed the ideas of Theo van Dusburg and M. Bill using a modular grid, mathematically verified constructions, as well as abstract geometric shapes. His work is the apogee of rational aesthetics.

The last poster is the Polish poster school, a poster for the international theater festival "Kontakt" by M. Vasilevsky (b. 1942). The optical illusion creates the feeling of an enlightened or surprised face, although in fact the eyes of the woman in the photo are closed. Black circles on the eyelids are a metaphor for pupils. Today, it is difficult to imagine design without metaphors. And although this applies to a lesser extent to the automotive industry, instrumentation, etc., a rocket or a soccer ball are also metaphors.

Let's return to G. N. Lola's understanding of design. She begins her methodology of "semiotic discursive modeling" by "sketching the boundaries" of the concept (intuitively and rationally grasped meaning of future work) in the form of a brief formulation, and then (in fact, during the pre-project study) a "semiotic situation" is created that "suggests a metaphor"^{[13, p.58]}. Thus, metaphor becomes one of the key concepts in its "semiotic modeling". It is no coincidence that until recently many authors have been actively writing about metaphor in architecture and design (in our country, a monograph by E. V. Zherdev (2010) is devoted to metaphor in design ^[14]).

Initially, the term "metaphor" is a literary term, its appearance in architecture and design is due to the postmodern understanding of the "world as a text" (and, as a result, an interest in semiotics). Hence such terms as "the language of architecture", "grammar of form" and even "morphology". The most authoritative developer of the semiotic approach to shaping is the most famous postmodernist theorist Charles Jenks (1939-2019). Analyzing architectural forms, he wrote: "Architecture and language share many analogies, and, freely using terms, we can talk about architectural "words" and "phrases", "syntax" and "semantics" ^{[15, 56]}. And further: "People invariably perceive this or that building in comparison with an object different from it or similar to it – that is, as a metaphor" ^{[15, 57]}.

In philosophy, this phenomenon, when thinkers (structuralists, representatives of analytical philosophy) began to look at the world through the prism of language, was called a "linguistic turn" (author of the term R. Rotri, 1967). The semiotic approach of Ch. Jenks, in fact, is a consequence of this turn, but expressed in shaping. It can be said that behind the decoding of the "language of architecture" Ch. Jenks hides the philosophers' idea that our thinking is limited to our own language, which we speak, and the world of forms we create is also a language, but nonverbal.

Let's give an example of a semiotic approach to understanding the form of a Ch. Jenks (Figure 2).

Analyzing metaphors in architecture, C. Jenks, in particular, considers the metaphor of the face, considering it "the most convincing in the construction of buildings" ^{[15, p.170]}. At the same time, he relies on the associative connection "house – body" in psychoanalysis. How "faces" C. Jenks interprets ancient facades in Amsterdam: "The ribbon-built houses of Amsterdam with their high crenellated gables, symmetry and face-like openings look at us like a company of prosperous, self-satisfied burghers from a group portrait of members of the Rembrandt rifle guild" (Figure 2a) ^{[15, p.171]}.

Tsch. Jenks believes that architecture must necessarily "speak": "The Renaissance expressed Plato's metaphysics, the ancient Romans expressed the organization of the Empire. What remains for the architecture of our era to express [?] ... the mistake of modernism in conveying a message ... is that it did not dare to answer this question" ^{[15, p.166]}. The situation began to change when buildings like the Sydney Opera House appeared (Figure 2b), he believes, because it is a mysterious signifier, that is, it has "a much larger number of meanings than its appearance clearly expresses" ^{[15, p.167]} and successfully absorbs "the meanings projected by each of us". According to Ch . According to Jenks, the Sydney Opera House is a mixed metaphor: "shells symbolize blooming flowers, sailboats in the bay, fish swallowing each other, and now, thanks to the local code, also the high cost of construction" ^{[15, p.61]}.

So, we see that design is a "transformable" product of modernist rationality. It took shape in the conditions of the modernist paradigm as a rational activity and initially relied on abstract, decorless shaping, form followed function. In addition, he relied on the idea of the unity of benefit and beauty, striving to put into practice some ideal models. However, with the paradigm shift, the understanding of design has changed, although its rational core has remained. The beautiful was replaced by the witty, the metaphor became the most important technique, the form followed the meaning, and the construction of ideal models faded into the background.

1.2 From intellectually comprehended meanings to personal experience: the Chinese and Japanese way of design.

If Ch . Jenks, using a semiotic approach, follows the path of intellectually comprehended meanings, i.e. Krippendorf, as H. S. Gafarov rightly notes, speaking about semantics, refers to the so-called "general semantics" of the Polish-American logician Alfred Korzybski (Alfred Korzybski, 1879-1950). According to Korzybski, general semantics is the study of a person's interaction with the world, his reaction to the world, his own reactions to his own reactions and the reactions of other people, as a result of which human behavior changes. Human cognition of the world is limited by the structure of his nervous system, as well as the structure of language. A person cannot experience the world directly, but interacts with it indirectly, through "abstractions", that is, non-verbal impressions or information received by the central nervous system, and their verbal indicators expressed in language ^{[11, p.13]}. Thus, in the semantic approach, not only the "language of forms" becomes important, but also sensations. According to K. Krippendorf, in addition to intelligently grasped meanings, in modern "human-oriented" design, sensations (sense) and context (context) are important ^{[3, p.50]}.

Thus, both approaches, semiotic and semantic, in contrast to functionalism with its motto "form follows function", assert that "meaning is more important than function, since design gives meaning to objects" ^{[11, p.11]}, but the semantic approach adds to the meanings, sensations and context. However, if you look at the examples cited by K. Krippendorf, it will be seen that "sensations" and "context" in his understanding tend to the psychology of perception in the tradition of the Ulm school (Figure 3).

Figure 3a shows "changing values in a changing context" according to K. Krippendorf: the central sign reads like the letter "B" if we read horizontally, and turns into the number "13" if we read vertically. Figure 3b shows the search for the "ideal type of coffee cup". The search for "ideal types" of objects focused on mass production goes back to the original understanding of design, inheriting the rationality of the Enlightenment. Speaking about modern design, K. Krippendorf retains the mindset of "ideal types" of objects, pointing out that "objects that look most typical for their category are easier to identify," it takes less time, and therefore they should be recognizable, although ideal types can be updated within one culture, and today it may not exist one "ideal type" for its category ^{[3, p.94]}.

And here K. Krippendorf's design closes in on its modernist "core", although with some reservations (such as the adoption of metaphors, for example). At the same time, design practice, especially beyond the limits of industrial design (Figure 4), as well as architecture went further. The famous philosopher M. Johnson (b. 1949) said: "Meaning grows out of our inner connections with life and bodily conditions of life." And further: "Aesthetics studies everything related to the human ability to create meaning and experience it" ^{[16, p.6]}. In the article "Architecture and Embodied Mind" (2002), he wrote: "Buildings are understood metaphorically as people", human interaction with architecture is a "bodily way of interacting and understanding meaning", which "occurs mainly on an unconscious level" ^{[17, p.76]}. In this statement, it is important that M. Johnson no longer speaks of metaphors and meanings as "language." His most important merit lies in the fact that, willingly or unwittingly following the Eastern tradition, he unites the mind and body that usually disintegrate in the West.

To understand what the "unity of body and spirit" in the East is, let's first turn to traditional Chinese art. The French philosopher-sinologist F. Julien (b. 1951) writes: "... [it is necessary] to move away from the Greek logic of perception and look for the logic of breathing in China" ^{[18, p.12]}. He describes the principle of "arising-disappearing" in Chinese painting, when mountains disappear behind clouds, rivers loop, then disappear, then reappear, etc., and concludes that all this is "nothing more than a breathing pattern – which, as we will gradually see, has had a huge, comparable to the ontological the choice of Greek thought, the influence on the structure of Chinese thought" ^{[18, p.28]}. Empty and filled, present and absent, in Chinese painting have the logic of inhalation and exhalation (Figure 5), that is, art associated in the West primarily with the spiritual, in the Chinese tradition turns out to be associated with the body (including the body of the author).

Note that body-related metaphors permeate Chinese calligraphy and painting in principle. Belozerova V. G. in the article "Anatomy of traditional Chinese painting" (2015) analyzes them in detail and indicates: "In the history of Chinese art, anatomical terms were not just metaphors, but essential categories expressing the understanding of the pictorial form as the "body" of ti [upr. 体 Tǐ] universal circulation of qi energy 氣 [upr. 气 qì] … The uniqueness of Chinese aesthetics lies in the fact that the concept of physicality predetermined both the structure of the art form and the very process of its creation, namely the technique of writing" ^{[19, p.344]}. So, there are terms in calligraphy: "bones", "veins", etc.

Chinese researcher Shi Xiongbo, analyzing Chinese calligraphy, writes that the form in calligraphy is always a "force-form": As soon as there is a form, a "configuration of forces" arises. "If there is a lack of shi in calligraphy, such a form is not a "form of motion" or "living form"" ^{[20, p.54]}, that is, a "living form". Thus, the form in the Chinese tradition is built in the image and likeness of a living being, when mountains are likened to "veins", energy circulates in them, they "breathe" (Figure 5).

From this point of view, it is noteworthy that our icons, for example, are perceived by the Chinese as 无神wúshén, that is, "lifeless". Paradoxically, this word can literally be translated both as "there is no soul" and as "there is no God." What is divine in the Chinese tradition is that which has a living movement, has the "liveliness" of the living.

Design (in the modern sense) began to develop in China relatively late, in fact, only since the 1990s, when China became the "factory" of the whole world. For this reason, Chinese design is still in its infancy, and does not fully demonstrate its potential. However, since the late 1990s, the Chinese government has begun to pursue a policy of "soft power" and actively invest in the development of its own culture, and today – and design. Here is the "Book of Insects" (虫子书, Figure 6) by the modern Chinese graphic designer Zhu Yingchun, which in 2017 was awarded the "Best Books from around the World" award (Leipzig, Germany). There is not a single real hieroglyph in this book – only traces of snails, beetles, earthworms, etc., which the author has been collecting for several years. The approach is as postmodern as it is traditionally Chinese – in ancient China, there were already "bird and worm-style writings" (upr. 鸟虫书 chóngshū, one of the varieties of the "seal style").

In connection with the issue of meaning formation in design, the "intellectual" tradition of China is also of interest – the legacy associated with the activities of the Wenren scholars who played the role of designers in traditional China ^{[21, p.54]}. The very image and aesthetics of Wenren today inspire many Chinese architects, designers, and artists. Among them are the architect Wang Shu, the photographer Sun Jun, and the master of traditional Chinese floristry Xu Wenzhi. It should be noted that Wenren had its own tradition of meaning formation, closely related to the knowledge of Chinese poetry and the Chinese language.

We believe that from the point of view of design, China's potential contribution may consist primarily in the inclusion of "embodied consciousness" in the design process, when the correctness of the chosen solution is determined not only by speculative calculations, but "resonates" with the feelings of the designer and the customer – this approach can be called "vitalizing", as well as in the concept of "living forms", when not only compositional or functional connections between elements are seen, but also the coherence of their movements. In addition, China, having its own intellectual tradition, is able to give new meanings, concepts, and solutions to design.

Japan went the other way, both in relation to China and in relation to the West. In the Japanese tradition (as in the Chinese), there was no Platonic idea and, consequently, no ideal models. Moreover, traditional Japanese aesthetics has always relied on an imperfect and unique form in its imperfection. The Japanese cite dimples as an example – on the one hand, this is a flaw, but it is he who is able to give charm to the face.

Let's give an example of the various shapes of cups for a tea ceremony (Figure 7). The master has never had the task of finding the "ideal type" of the bowl, because it is the imperfections (streaks, cracks, dents) that make the bowl unique, recognizable, and help determine the "face" of the bowl (it always has a "face"). In addition, the different shapes of the bowls allow you to experience different personal experiences. Probably for this reason, the Japanese have achieved incredible skill in giving a unique imperfection.

Today, the aesthetics of such a "unique imperfection" is mainly associated with traditional Japanese arts – ceramics, calligraphy, ikebana, but it can also be found in the field of graphic design, when, for example, hieroglyphs are written "unprofessionally" (with oil painting brushes, split bamboo and even fingers) – a unique recognizable image is born (Figure 8).

Although, in general, Japanese design has gone not so much along the path of "imperfect" form as along the path of simplification, there are many meanings associated with traditional Japanese culture. Let's give an example of packaging for different types of fish, which received the JPDA (Japanese Package Design Association) award in 2021. The concept of the project is that the golden contour symbolizing miso paste is gradually colored, turning into fish (the taste of fish appears in the taste of miso) ^[22]. The very idea of generating emptiness, when something emerges from nothing, echoes traditional aesthetics, although it is expressed here by modern means. It is important that such a technique makes you look into the emerging form.

Japan's potential in terms of design, in our opinion, lies in designing a thing based on the experience of interacting with it (which makes it convenient) and in the fact that the thing is conceived as a unique personal experience. This approach can be called "contemplative", since it involves immersion in oneself, reflection on the level of sensations. In addition, a competent rethinking of traditional aesthetics allows Japanese designers to create a new design, but in such a way that it has an implicit connection with traditional meanings, and unwittingly feels like "deep", which is probably the secret of the success of Japanese design in the West.

So, design in the West has gone from "form follows function" to "form follows meaning." Having spread to other territories, design has gained new meanings, a new vision of form. Today, it seems extremely relevant to study the Oriental, Japanese and Chinese approach to design, since nowadays design is the assignment of senses, sensations, and the tradition of working with sensations is an oriental tradition.