They say life is a rollercoaster. Well, some people do anyway. Over the last 15 years, we’ve literally seen it all — the ups and the downs and the loops. It can make you wonder: was there ever a time of relative normality? Or have we always been in some state of flux, senses heightened and poised to pivot?
Who knows. But the old adage — adapt or die — certainly applies in every business, irrespective of wider global circumstances. And at CTRL Space we have always shifted and shapeshifted.
Maybe adaptation is simply the recalibration of complacency. And whatever the editorial spin or cute anecdotes say about change, we’re still here. Looking forward, designing our hearts out.
But what even is design?
Design broadly speaking, is a process or series of processes to create a proposition that facilitates a need. The design process is there to fix, solve, improve, adapt, manipulate, enhance, streamline; all manner of adjectives for something in our lives we need. Generally speaking, everything created by human hands has been designed in some way; thought about, sketched, drawn, modelled, conceived, mocked up. It’s all part of the process we call design.
Mies van der Rohe famously cited that form follows function. To truly create a successful design, one must first understand the function of the proposition before the form or aesthetic can be determined. So design aims to strike a balance between functionality and aesthetics, the objective and the subjective.Design can be a contradictory creative discipline. In some projects, the aesthetic, visual response is the determining factor of success. In others, success requires a purely technical outcome. And of course, there’s everything in between.This leads us to the idea of good design and bad design. Technically speaking, there can be no such thing as bad design from an aesthetic point of view. Just as no artwork is bad art, the aesthetics of design are purely subjective.
However, when the desired outcome or proposition must fulfill a specific function, what’s measurable is how well the product functions for this purpose. In this instance, it’s bad design that gets all the headlines. Good design comes almost as an expectation. Things should just work. The designer has run through a process, understood all the parameters and designed for them — after all, that’s their job. When the proposition is executed as intended, there’s no fanfare, it just works. No celebration for doing your job — it just fits. Unless, of course, it doesn’t.
As a business, we’ve always strived to make good design, including good functional design, commonplace. Staying true to Mies van der Rohe’s adage has set us a foundation for successful outcomes. In this visual directory of our work, I try to unpack some of the trends, musings, ideas, and thoughts we’ve danced with over the last 15 years. Each has, in some way, been a response to circumstance, environment, or a situation. That’s the power of design: ever-evolving, ever-changing, always in flux.
The idea to create a book has been percolating for a long time, so it seemed appropriate to put things into action as we reach a major milestone: 15 years as CTRL Space. That said, this is not an anniversary celebration book. It’s a stake in the ground; a point in time to reflect on where we’ve been, how we’ve got here, and what lies ahead — seen through the lens of design.
I hope you enjoy.
Chris, Founder & Principal