Design language

A design language also known as design language system, design vocabulary is an overarching scheme or style that guides the design of a complement of products or architectural settings.

Not to be confused with Visual programming language.

Objectives

Designers wishing to give their suite of products a unique but consistent look and feel define a specification for it, which can describe choices for design aspects such as materials, colour schemes, shapes, patterns, textures, or layouts. They then follow the scheme in the design of each object in the suite.[1]

Usually, design languages are not rigorously defined; the designer basically makes one thing in a similar manner as another. In other cases, they are followed strictly, so that the products gain a strong thematic quality. For example, although there is a great variety of unusual chess set designs, the pieces within a set are usually thematically consistent.

Sometimes, designers encourage others to follow their design languages when decorating or accessorizing.

Industrial design

In automobiles, the design language is often in the grille design. For instance, many BMW vehicles share a design language,[1] including front-end styling consisting of a split "kidney grille" and four circular headlights. Some manufacturers have appropriated design language cues from rival firms.[2]

Software

In software architecture, design languages are related to architecture description languages. The most well known design language is Unified Modeling Language.

In the context of graphical user interfaces, for example, human interface guidelines can be thought of as design languages for applications.[3]

Examples

Software

Apple

Microsoft

Google

Automotive

Cadillac

Ford

Mazda

Mitsubishi
  • Dynamic Shield[5]

Subaru
  • Dynamic x Solid[6]
gollark: The trouble with saying that lifesaving medicines shouldn't cost loads is that developing and testing new medicines is *very expensive*, and for rare conditions that's not split across many people. That only applies in *some* cases, though.
gollark: "Great" if you like what's effectively cosmic horror, I suppose.
gollark: <@!336962240848855040> There's a great series of SCP Foundation stories about "antimemes", which are sort of what you're talking about: http://www.scp-wiki.net/antimemetics-division-hub
gollark: Ah yes, "security", because Apple's designs are perfect and those who change them will merely destroy that perfection.
gollark: I... don't really think it's bad at all, really.

See also

References
  1. Brunner, Robert; Emery, Stewart; Hall, Russ (2009). Do You Matter?: How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company. Pearson Education. pp. 157–72. ISBN 978-0-13-714244-6.
  2. "Car Design News Car Design Gallery on Form Language". Archived from the original on 2012-07-07. Retrieved 2008-09-24.
  3. Winograd, Terry (1996). "Bringing Design to Software". Stanford HCI Group. Retrieved 22 February 2014.
  4. Patton, Phil (2011-05-20). "Mazda Designers Abandon Nagare, Embrace Kodo". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-12-22.
  5. "Explained: Mitsubishi's Dynamic Shield Design Philosophy". The News Wheel. 2016-07-20. Retrieved 2019-12-23.
  6. "DYNAMIC X SOLID: Subaru's Global Architecture Explained". The News Wheel. 2016-07-19. Retrieved 2019-12-23.


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