Technology (Photoshop etc) Vs. Handcraft

[nataliepatel1]

I am a third year Textile Design student at the University of Leeds and I am currently writing my dissertation. The subject is on whether computer aided designs are impacting the industry more than hand crafted textiles. I would really like to hear what you all think about this subject. Do you feel the medium you work in is the designer’s choice or do you feel a certain pressure from the design industry to design in a certain way? Has the use of computer aided design (through software packages such as Photoshop and Illustrator) helped improve your design work? If so, in what way? Do you believe that a combination of both computer aided designs and handcraft is the most successful way of designing? In your opinion, would you say that the design industry is moving digitally rather than handcrafted - What do you believe future trends will be?

Thanks,

Natalie

 

[Moominbaby]

I personally believe that great design uses computer little as possible. Computers are amazing these days but they should be sat in front of only at the end stages of design or when your ideas have firm foundations and strong starting points otherwise your ideas tend to get watered down or lost.

I dont really feel pressured to design a certain way as long as my design translates the message and follows brand guidelines. (compromising your design ethics and following brand guides should be two diffrent thing entirely and a good designer will have no trouble doing this.)

'Has the use of computer aided design (through software packages such as Photoshop and Illustrator) helped improve your design work?'

Computers have helped me realise and try out ideas quicker but I am of the CS, Mac generation so maybe someone older would be better at answering this.

'Do you believe that a combination of both computer aided designs and handcraft is the most successful way of designing?'

Yes or the use of no computers. I tend to feel numb and unconnected to entirly computer generated design (speaking mainly about images, illustration and graphic design)
The designs that apeall to me look as little like they have been designed on a computer as possible and I think that this current trend of illustrational handmade design will continue untill computers can provide something new. But I feel that will be a long time as we are all very jaded with ref to this type of design.

Hope this was mildy useful