form_function_discussion-r.adriel

The argument of form over function, or vice versa, in terms of design misses the point, in my opinion. The role of form and function have more to do with the contexts in which they are appropriated, and more so are they subject to the propensity of language to address functional forces in environment, biology and psychology.

Function is potential, and function is always already. Language is our structure of the world, and from language we get appropriations of function in culture, religion and history—indeed these are forms. So to ask what precedes what is moot since for millennia human beings have been in a processes of leveling and converging functions and forms. Web design, in my opinion, does not challenge the dialectic of function and form, but is yet another appropriation and synthesis of the two and more importantly appeals to higher forms like culture and context.

To say, well this means function precedes form, is to consider ideals, and this is more of a philosophical question, since in the practice of design, and indeed our advance in time as a species, relies on both, and the distinction that forms are manifest objectifications of function as they are understood in the frames of reference and contexts of the designer—and these in turn rely on historical forms, and on and on back to Plato, or even before when the first human hand picked a rock and made the distinction between himself and the rock.

The most important thing, I think we can all agree, is that though function is a relationship of input and output, there is not necessarily only one input, and output consequently. In other words, as web designers it is important to keep an open mind when it comes to ways to capture and facilitate function, if we think of function as a force to which we must give form, the form is up to us—as is the discovery of functions.

There is also cultures of re-appropriation, like Steampunk wherein the natives create new functions out of old forms.