What is referred to as ‘design’ in one situation may be called ‘styling’ in another, or ‘engineering’, ‘programming’, ‘art direction’ or ‘corporate strategy’.

Design’s versatility and its ability to adapt to so many different contexts are among its greatest strengths. But the lack of coherence in its industrial role has fostered more misunderstandings.

If you are younger, you may well use a thumb, because it will have been exercised so thoroughly by typing text messages and gunning down digital assailants on game consoles that it is likely to be stronger and nimbler than any of your fingers.

The genetic manipulation of the dog is a tragic example of what can happen when a sequence of changes is misconceived and poorly planned, rather than being designed efficiently.

Another tension inherent in design aesthetics is that such judgements are always subjective. After all, there may be some people who like the London 2012 logo and possibly the colour of the Post-it Note.

Designing is not a profession but an attitude. — László Moholy-Nagy1

Plato said as much in 390 BC by stating that the ‘virtue and beauty and rightness of every manufactured article, living creature or action is assessed only in relation to the purpose for which it was made’.

The design historian John Heskett has compared the difficulty, if not impossibility, of defining ‘design’ to doing the same for ‘love’.10 Both words have so many layers of meaning that

For as long as there is no clear consensus on what design represents, it will be prey to more muddles and clichés.