Vanilla Essence

For a long time there was a misconception amongst some developers that magnolia was not a colour. As in ‘we didn’t want to use a colour so we painted the rooms magnolia’.

In all types of design we are occasionally blind to key features which are the perverse result of not making a decision – like the automatic default settings on our technology. Not all unthinking decisions are bad – but it’s a dangerous way to spend a lot of money.

A common fear about more analytical approaches to design is that we will inevitably end up with ‘vanilla’ design: design without heart or expression, like wind tunnel designed cars, or magnolia painted rooms. Underlying these fears is the suspicion that if we think too much about design we will be less creative. There is one compelling rebuttal of this – it is not true. Quality design comes from quality of forethought. Good design is not an accident or a default - and it is never inevitable.