We strive to give them a sense of what was, and what is, but we want them to be preoccupied with what can and ought to be. Using art as a visual language to communicate ideas, Samuels says designers go through a process akin to that of any other field of inquiry. It is the process of invention. We observe, conceptualize, visualize, realize, evaluate, and refine.
Creative work is our research.
Some explore where new technology can take their work. All grapple with the philosophical, emotional and technical concerns of the various worlds of the arts, the university and beyond. Artists collaborating with a variety of university disciplines excites Samuels, who has shared some of his own methods as an industrial designer with students in a writing class. Samuels guides his own research by making a matrix. Along one edge of a piece of paper he notes all the potential users of a product.