I know book design involves both form and function and also how we define function. You might say a book cover is merely form, "making it pretty," look and feel. But it's also function cuz it's meant to do something important: catch and hold attention, deliver a message instantaneously. And you might say the guts of a book are purely function, except that feel of the font and page design can significantly improve readability.
Technology design traditionally has suffered from a diminished, half brained idea of function. We even call it engineering rather than designing. Design is for wusses, right? It's "making pretty objects." It's this half brained, left brained approach that's the real problem, however.
Left brain thinking is verbal and analytical. Right brain is non-verbal and intuitive, using pictures rather than words. In art, right brain work means the difference between a drawing a stick man and a Rembrandt. Why? The left brain tells us that a stick man is all that's needed for the purposes of counting and naming; the rest is form, design, prettifying. A Rembrandt requires right brain involvement because it offers perceptions that are dismissed by the left brain: spaces, relationships, gestalt. Think of it as design in three or even four dimensions.
We need "both sides now" design. We need, for example, a house design that we can afford and also want to live in. In book design, it can be the difference between the book that we merely pick up and the one we actually purchase. It's the difference between a Dell and a Mac.
Want to experience the difference between left and right brain work for yourself? Try Betty Edwards's drawing exercises. Just to say, the right and left brain definitions refer to sets of perceptions, not necessarily chunks of neurons, imo.
http://www.drawright.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Edwards
Posted at RoughlyDrafted
