In 2023 alone, there were several cases of copyright infringement in the music industry. Many of them were contested on the basis that some melodies and chord progressions were eerily similar and therefore a rip-offs.

This brought on a thought in my mind, it’s eerily similar, yes… but so is so much of music itself.

If there are finite notes, then the number of melodies is finite itself. Any math and music head would say adding more factors like tempo, time signature, scales and other factors, would increase the final number. But it is still finite, however large that number might be. That finite number is 825 billion.

And I am just using plain English, Oli Freke’s article has more information.

That begs the question, is that the same in design?

A design is used for communication and certain elements are required to communicate an idea or a use. There are a finite number of elements and that means that there are a finite number of structures for these elements. Adding in further factors like intended medium, reading requirements, and the message itself, there are and will be a finite number of design variations one could come up with.

That brings forth a bigger question, is design just redesign then?

Is all we as designers ever doing is stirring the pot and hoping that the ingredients settle in a slightly more different place? (Think anti-design for placement)

Through this train of thought we have stumbled upon one of the many core tenets of design thinking.

Design is Redesign

Our new “designs” are just iterations of the previous design. With that lens, have a look at the Pepsi logo. What is genuinely the variation? Did it matter? (Ignore the brand document though. That’s an “I need to reach a 100 pages in my thesis”)

The first nugget within this tenet is “no solution will ever be the ultimate solution”. With constant changes in human experiences, and development in technology, our possibilities of designing something that is the final solution are near impossible. The final solution never exists.  (That’s the same for innovation and especially for tech). Case in point, are voice assistants. Initially, they were answering single questions. Now they are expected to remember the whole conversation and act accordingly. Even with Chat GPT 4o, the results haven’t reached the level we envision it to be.

The second nugget is something that we at the Studio understand very well, “individuals propose these new designs”. An individual, a designer in this case, is loaded with their own experiences, and likes and dislikes. Yes as designers, we are constantly collaborating with others but the design itself is marred with our own filters. It’s important now to understand and take to heart that biases are aplenty in design. Choosing one material over the other, placement and even final colour. This is truly what makes design fascinating because is it not art then? Each version of the redesign is effected by the experiences of the designer.

The third is that “we start where someone left it”. A designer brings it to a satisfactory point. Another designer is reimagining the design from where it is and works from there. Rarely do designers dismantle the whole design to reimagine it. My favourite example here is Bose. When it came to designing a sound system, technically someone already had. They made and designed a decent sound system. Many owned it. Maybe even loved it. So when Mr. Bose comes in to design a better sound experience, he doesn’t have to work from scratch. The parts and processes need to be tweaked. Isn’t that what everyone does? 

Here is the fourth in the list “Design always contains a collective and evolutionary dimension”. So not only is a design or redesign influenced by the designer itself. But also by the experiences and inputs of the audience and users.

Disruption in design is immense. In many ways, the word disruption is used for minor to monumental changes. And disruption as an idea, is only granted to the most effective and popular changes. Yet these changes and designs are vastly built on the pre-existing.

The Room for Innovation

So next time, as designers, it’s worth knowing what the previous design was meant for and the inspiration behind it. Knowing the current state of the design is as vital to creating a new one. Like in music, with so many factors like usability, audience and intent, we are bound to come up with something that has already been done. 

That doesn't mean that we'll exhaust all our options. It means that the finite elements give us licence to push the boundaries. It forces us to find new ways to communicate and connect with design, especially with the constant development of human experiences.

So next time, know that your work is built on someone else's. That you are in conversation with the multiple design and designers that go far back in time. But the iterative nature in design means that the room for innovation is bigger than you imagined it.