We’re on a road to nowhere-/-Come on inside
Takin’ that ride to nowhere-/-We’ll take that ride
David Byrne was right: life is absurd. It is practically an inescapable conclusion. We are all on the Road to Nowhere, and by nowhere I mean dust city: the Big Sleep. And if that’s not enough, we have all this ridiculous shit to do between now and the grave, mixed in with all the cool stuff.
But don’t lose heart: that doesn’t mean that we can’t have fun along the way. Take design, for instance. Design is one of the best jobs in the world. Design is play. Design is ‘what if’ taken to implausible extremes, and then to top it all off, someone actually builds or makes something at the end of the process. (On a good day, anyway.)
Some think of the ‘Road to Nowhere’ as a negative or defeatist song: I do not. In the strange metaphysical calculus of popular music, the Road to Nowhere merely points out that the Road is the really interesting bit. The Road is the experience, and the point, rather than the destination – which, as the song says, is practically nowhere at all.
The design process is about travelling The Road – the path you tread as you chase down ideas. Design is driven by pathfinding, not the arrival at solutions or destinations. The fact that you get anywhere at all is incidental, and of secondary importance. Look at the scenery you can discover along the way!
This blog is about life on The Road, and the practical methods and techniques of pathfinding – and not primarily about design as a product. Come on inside: come take that ride.
