On Intentionality

[holland]

If designing is just selecting between preset options, why shouldn't you have a generator do it for you? Why shouldn't you just grab a template where the majority of the decisions are already made -- or always go for the option that comes to mind first?

Indeed, long before we had anything like ChatGPT, there were already countless programs and websites that could be used to generate designs.

And long before computers even existed, there were countless paper calculators, books of tables, and other mass produced devices that could be used to generate designs.

And long before there was the industrial revolution or printing press, there were countless tools and systems taught to generate designs through randomizers like cards, dice, clouds, and dreams.

And at every point in time, there have been tools for tracing and templates with various well-established solutions.

So why do we even need designers? Why should we bother making decisions ourselves when they are so mentally draining?

We do it ourselves because when there is no intention behind the design, it is obvious to the consumer and has a negative impact on both the creative process and the final result.

It's very important to realize that a design is not only the decisions themselves but also the implications of them being made in conjunction with one another. By making a decision to select a feature during the design process, we are, by proxy, making a thousand more decisions about all the complex relationships that feature will have with the features around it and the whole of the project.

The principles of design are one attempt at formalizing what those relationships might look like and what you're looking out for when designing.

But there will always be deeper, context-specific issues between the lines that no abstract principle can address. We can only recognize them through our own skill and experience designing at each level of the process.

Let's look at some of the more explicit and practical reasons we piece things together so carefully:

• On the production side, the designer concerns themselves with how reproducible that design actually is. For example, if you put every possible feature into a generator as an option and produce ten characters, those characters might be so radically different that each model needs to be completely rebuilt from scratch, or each illustration may be so laborious to accurately recreate those subtle variations in features that the project would go beyond over-budget.
  
  
• On the creative side, the designer concerns themselves with aesthetics, readability, and theme. Those characters from the previous example could be so different that they stick out from each other like a sore thumb and never look good when interacting. Or they could be generated with such similar features that players can't tell an enemy and an ally apart. Or they might just not make any sense in the world they're plopped into.
  
  
• On the ethics and marketing side, the designer concerns themselves with ensuring the designs properly communicate the experience the project is promising and attract the right crowds. For example, your generated antagonists might end up all being one race or one body type, which can give the impression the story is based around a bigoted concept that deters a whole community of viewers.

So even when experimenting with dice and such, you still need your designer's touch to correctly limit the options to only those relevant to the context, and you still need your designer's touch to correctly veto combinations that may be offensive, repetitive, clashing, etc.

There is also the issue of satisfaction. Both for the consumer and the creator.

• On the creator side, especially with solo projects, the design process might be something that's personally important to you. Maybe it's fun. Maybe it connects you to the characters and places. Maybe it makes you care about the project in a way that just following someone else's outline wouldn't.
  
  If you skip a step that would provide you a sense of satisfaction in your artistic process, you risk losing your momentum in a project or burning out completely.
  
  
• On the consumer side, their sense of connection to the humans that created something often plays a big part in the satisfaction they get out of it.
  
  They might find satisfaction in trying to figure out what the creator's thought process was. They might find satisfaction in seeing their own thoughts, feelings, and experiences reflected back at them from someone with a similar background making their creative design decisions from that context.
  
  Something being "lolsorandom" can offer its own satisfaction, but a lot of its appeal is lost when the source of the randomness is revealed to not even be a person, as the satisfaction often comes from wondering what kind of person would have made something so strange and why.

Remember that something being more efficient doesn't necessarily mean it's more effective. Rapidly generating designs -- whether through software or playing cards or brain games -- always risks losing some of the substance that makes both creators and consumers actually care about those designs.

I'm not saying you can't play with randomizers. I use divination techniques in my design work all the time. It's not cheating or anything. Just realize that over-relying on them without sufficient human intervention produces a more shallow experience for both you and your audience.