2.2 - Conducting and Implementing Research in Design Work

 In this post we're going to outline and demonstrate a helpful research process for beginners, from the formation of an idea and gathering of reference to its use during initial design work. For this research process we'll be implementing a mindset that many creatives utilise, so before we get into our own example we should expand on this and look at examples of it in existing media.

'Nothing is original anymore' - and that's completely fine

'Nothing is truly original anymore'. How many times have you heard that one before? It's a phrase that gets thrown around quite a bit, and arguably, there is some truth to it. No new idea is completely without its sources of inspiration, after all it's impossible not to be in some way influenced by the things we see and experience in life. You can therefore make the argument that no new idea is entirely original. And that's ok. The best way to deal with this is to embrace it. Though you may not be able to create something that is completely and utterly unrelated to any idea that has come before it, it's how you put your spin on an idea that makes your take on it unique. Arguably, we should choose to instead look at the sentiment of 'nothing is original anymore' as an advantage in that it means we have an inexhaustible wealth of inspiration for our concepts, and this is where research comes in. 

Building a Unique Take on an Existing Idea

An effective solution to building something unique then is not to come up with a completely original idea, but rather to combine two (or more) existing ideas in an original way, thus creating something unique out of the combination. This is an idea that we can see examples of almost anywhere in popular media when we break things down to their fundamental ideas.

For a clear example of this, we can look at the 'infected' from The Last of Us series. The zombie/infected apocalypse is a trope that has been done countless times, but Naughty Dog's franchise builds a unique interpretation of the classic undead foe by combining it with a real-world fungus called cordyceps. In the real world, this parasitic fungus infects ants and other insects, ' zombifying' them and compelling them to climb up to a high place, where it sprouts from their body, releasing spores over the area below in order to propagate itself. Naughty Dog took the idea of this fungal infection and imagined it crossing over to the human population, creating their own, unique brand of fungus zombies, or 'infected' as they are referred to in the franchise:

Concept showing the stages of cordyceps infection, Hyoung Taek Nam

Concepts showing spore-spreading colonies erupted from human hosts, Hyoung Taek Nam

This is just one example of a compelling concept that is derived from two established ideas, but thousands of others exist. Pokemon are another great example of the theory, as many of the most iconic designs can be boiled down to a combination of simple ideas that is executed in a unique and interesting way.  Take Blastoise for example - it boils down to a combination of a turtle and a tank, and while neither of those two things is unique, put them together in a smart way and you have an absolutely iconic Pokemon design.

Blastoise official art, Ken Sugimori

As a bit of a thought experiment, next time you watch a fantasy/sci-fi film for example, pick out a compelling character, creature or environment and try to break it down to the fundamentals of its design. There's a good chance a combination of two or more existing ideas/tropes will emerge, just like the combination of zombie and fungus in Naughty Dog's infected, or Blastoise' tank/turtle fusion.

Demonstration of the Research Process - Coral Citadel

Now that we've outlined the thought process that is going to guide the research behind our concepts, we can look at a small project that I have prepared as an example of the process. My basic direction for this project was to do some sort of ocean castle/kingdom concept. We'll call that our initial brief, for the purposes of this demonstration. Of course, an underwater castle isn't exactly an original concept, so we'll need to implement the ideology discussed above in order to develop our own twist on the subject matter. 

Establishing the Core Ideas of Your Concept

I decided to combine the two ideas of a structure made entirely of coral, and a gothic architectural style. When making the initial decision on your combination of themes, it's worth doing some early research to explore options. In my example, this meant looking at various architectural styles from different periods before deciding on the gothic theme.

Gathering Reference

With your core established, it's time to do some research around your selected ideas and gather some useful reference imagery. The goal here is to gather images that present the findings of your research in a way that will be useful to you when it comes to designing. 

This is the main reference sheet that I used to design my 'coral citadel'. As you can see I split the images into my two main ideas of coral and gothic architecture; being organised here will only make life easier when it comes to designing. Selecting coral references was straightforward as it was just a matter of finding forms that would be interesting/useful for my concept. Gathering architectural references was a little more involved as it required some research on my part when it came to understanding which architectural features make a structure identifiably gothic - a topic I knew very little about. My research led me to conclude that features such as spires, flying buttresses (which I had previously never heard of) and pointed arches are defining features of gothic architecture, so I made sure to gather references targeting those aspects specifically. This is a good example of the importance of reading up about subject matters that we are unfamiliar with before tackling them, as we touched on in my previous post.

I have also found that when working with an unfamiliar subject matter, breaking down your reference imagery into simple large, medium and small shapes as I have done above can be a helpful exercise for developing your grasp. In this case it helped me to see the balance between the large, angular (squares/triangles) forms and rounded accents/details of gothic architecture. According to the concept artist that recommended this technique to me, exercises like these are helpful because they train you to analyse and therefore understand your references, rather just observe them, and this ultimately helps you in transferring the information they contain over to your concepts.

Implementing Research in Your Design Work

 With references gathered and studied, we're ready to begin some design work. We're going to begin with some quick sketching that aims to explore the possibilities of our researched subject.

Beginning with exploratory sketches, I'm focusing on two things: I want to be sure to implement what I have learned about both the key architectural features (spires, buttresses, etc) and the overall shape balance (squares, triangles, circles) of gothic architecture. There is of course abstraction and distortion of these facets because I'm pushing for more of a fantasy design, so we can push things a little further than in the real world. From there I move to a more refined sketch that aims to narrow down the design. Though this design ends up very different than any of our gothic reference structures, it is hopefully still clearly drawing on the motifs that can be found within them. Notice how at this stage I am leaving out the whole coral side of things. Starting with one side of your core idea like this is not necessary, I just found it helpful in this instance because it allowed me to focus purely on building my understanding of gothic architecture, which I could then convert into a coral structure later. The approach here varies by instance.

This is where I begin to pull in the coral side of the idea. I start by using my gothic design sketch as a template for a coral structure of the same layout, but find that this new sketch (middle) has strayed a little too far from the more architectural look I am aiming for. As long as you recognise your mistakes and work to correct them, missteps like this are simply part of the refinement process. I then go back in and look more closely at specific aspects of the architecture such as the spires and the Notre Dame inspired, rose-motif window of my central tower. The name of the game here is finding parallels between your two core ideas so that you can combine the two successfully. Take the Rose Window for instance - The red, webbed coral from my reference instantly struck me as an interesting substitute for the intricate detailing of the gothic window. Similarly, the round coral works well in place of the notches that are often seen on gothic spires. Having worked out the details of the design, I move to a final design sketch:

As you can see, all of the aspects that I have worked out over the previous sheets are applied in this final design sketch. Hopefully the gothic architectural inspiration still shines through even though the structure has been 'coral-ified', and hopefully this demonstration has shown how relevant your research should remain throughout your design process.

Summary

We began this discussion by establishing the process of taking pre-existing ideas and combining them to create something new and compelling, rather than expecting to come up with something wholly original in and of itself. We also looked at examples of this in popular media to show how commonly the mindset is utilised. We then looked at how we can implement this mindset as part of a research and design process, which can be outlined as follows:

1. establish two (or more) core ideas
2. research accordingly, fill gaps in knowledge
3. gather useful and targeted reference images
4. design exploration that incorporates research and experiments with combination of core ideas
5. finalise design

Not every design needs to be done in this way, but this is a great springboard if you are struggling to find a unique angle to approach your subject matter/brief from. I also find that this is generally a reliable structure to follow as a beginner when it comes to the early stages of a concept project. I can't stress enough how much selecting a couple of core ideas to research and design around helps in bringing your concept a much stronger identity. Having this focused foundation is so beneficial in contrast to a quickly piled together, eclectic bunch of photos from a two minute image search (as I used to do), which can lead to uninspired and incoherent results. 

In the next post, we'll be continuing with our coral citadel example in order to look at the process and benefits of tonal referencing.