Relationship between Design and Translation

What is design? This is a one of the toughest question for me as a design student. To know the mean of this term, one thing you need to know is what sign is. Semiotic actually play a lot of roles in our society. It is just everywhere we go. For example, the symbols on in front of the ladies’ rooms show us that it is a room for ladies. We perceive the message right away that it is bathroom for ladies not for gentlemen. Sign is something that sends message or invitation out to people. Everything we perceive is “SIGN”.

So what is design? As we break down the term DESIGN as DE and SIGN, Design would mean to break down the sign, to destroy the sign. In another term, it is the action to break down everything we perceive everyday and differentiate them. But how can we make things different from what is already exist? And how can people design things with the same function has the out comes are different? It is because people perceive things differently that make the process of translation becomes different.

As it is stated in the last paragraph that people perceive things differently, it is because they all have different background, knowledge and experiences. For example, if you look back in to the Renaissance time, people would look at the ladies that is kind of chubby as beautiful. However, people in our era don’t think that way anymore. We perceive that body as fat. The perception of beauty changes overtime. Or western people might act differently from Thai people in the same situation. For instance, an old lady is sitting on a chair and there is a girl that needs to walk pass, western girl would just walk normally like nothing is happening. On the other hand, Thai girl would crawl on the ground until she crawl passes that older lady. Culture and value also make us perceive things differently.

Once people see things differently, they translate those things differently as well. Then they would design differently. Now, most of everything can’t be called creating the sign in twenty-first century instead they call it designing because almost everything is created. So they can’t really come up with original things but derive from the existing. But how those things will be derived it’s all depends on translation. For example, staircases have been existed for a long time. However, people keep designing it differently. From a staircase with risers and treads, they took away risers and stick the tread to wall. This makes the staircase look floatable. Another example is toothbrush that existed for a long time. What we can do with it is to make it more convenient to clean your teeth. So people have to find the bad part of the earlier model and ameliorate it, make it into the better model. Or they might add more features to a regular toothbrush. This is how design relates to translation in one way. Translation makes design different.

Another way of how design and translation relates is design effects the way people translate thing. Once the new invention is launched and it hits the public. Many people would have that image as a standard of the good object. For example, when mobile phone is first launched. It is a great object, a phone that is mobility. Then you can reach people wherever they are. But since smartphone is launched. People stop caring about the regular cell phone that can only text and call. They see smartphone as revolution or something that changes the world. Perspective of people on that object has changed. It create the different translation.