Shape: Talking about Seeing and Doing (Paperback)

In Shape, George Stiny argues that seeing shapes -- with all their changeability and ambiguity -- is an inexhaustible source of creative ideas. Understanding shapes, he says, is a useful way to understand what is possible in design.Shapes are devices for visual expression just as symbols are devices for verbal expression. Stiny develops a unified scheme that includes both visual expression with shapes and verbal expression with signs. The relationships -- and equivalencies -- between the two kinds of expressive devices make design comparable to other professional practices that rely more on verbal than visual expression. Design uses shapes while business, engineering, law, mathematics, and philosophy turn mainly to symbols, but the difference, says Stiny, isn't categorical. Designing is a way of thinking. Designing, Stiny argues, is calculating with shapes, calculating without equations and numbers but still according to rules. Stiny shows that the mechanical process of calculation is actually a creative process when you calculate with shapes -- when you can reason with your eyes, when you learn to see instead of count.The book takes the idea of design as calculation from mere heuristic or metaphor to a rigorous relationship in which design and calculation each inform and enhance the other. Stiny first demonstrates how seeing and counting differ when you use rules -- that is, what it means to calculate with your eyes -- then shows how to calculate with shapes, providing formal details. He gives practical applications in design with specific visual examples. The book is extraordinarily visual, with many drawings throughout -- drawings punctuated with words. You have to see this book in order to read it.

在《形狀》一書中，喬治·斯汀尼（George Stiny）主張，觀察形狀──包括其可變性和模糊性──是創意思維的源泉。他表示，理解形狀是理解設計中可能性的一種有用方式。形狀是視覺表達的工具，就像符號是語言表達的工具一樣。斯汀尼發展了一個統一的方案，既包括形狀的視覺表達，也包括符號的語言表達。這兩種表達工具之間的關係和等價性使得設計與其他更多依賴語言而非視覺表達的專業實踐相比可比。設計使用形狀，而商業、工程、法律、數學和哲學主要使用符號，但斯汀尼表示，這種差異並不是絕對的。設計是一種思考方式。斯汀尼認為，設計是在形狀中進行計算，不需要方程式和數字，但仍然遵循規則。斯汀尼展示了機械計算過程實際上是一個創造性過程，當你用形狀進行計算時，你可以用眼睛推理，學會看而不是數數字。這本書將設計作為計算的概念從僅僅是啟發或隱喻提升到一種嚴謹的關係，其中設計和計算相互影響並增強。斯汀尼首先展示了使用規則時看和數的不同之處──也就是用眼睛計算的意義──然後展示了如何用形狀進行計算，並提供了形式細節。他通過具體的視覺示例給出了設計的實際應用。這本書非常視覺化，其中穿插著許多圖畫──圖畫中夾雜著文字。你必須親眼看這本書才能閱讀它。