A designer can be thought of as anyone who makes a thing.
Any thing and any kind of thing.
From this angle, a lot of people you would not ordinarily think of as designers come into view just because they conceived, planned, and created things, as any designer would.
Discovering – or rediscovering – the geniuses of this process is always rewarding and in that spirit, l offer one of the greatest scientists – designers, that is – of the 17th century. His name was Robert Hooke.
Any thing and any kind of thing.
From this angle, a lot of people you would not ordinarily think of as designers come into view just because they conceived, planned, and created things, as any designer would.
Discovering – or rediscovering – the geniuses of this process is always rewarding and in that spirit, l offer one of the greatest scientists – designers, that is – of the 17th century. His name was Robert Hooke.
He is obscure today due in part to his famous, influential, and
vindictive colleague Sir Isaac Newton, who made it his business to overshadow
all competition. Yet Hooke was a
true genius of his age; his interests and designs knew no bounds, ranging from
physics and astronomy, to chemistry and biology, geology and architecture to
drawing.
Hooke invented, among many other things, the universal joint, the iris diaphragm, an early prototype of the respirator, and devices for more accurate clocks. As the Chief Surveyor, he helped rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666. As a theorist, he developed the theory of combustion, devised Hooke's Law, studied the physics of gases, and the list goes on and on.
Hooke even realized, two and a half centuries before Darwin, that the fossil record documented changes among the organisms on the planet, and that species have both appeared and gone extinct throughout the history of life on Earth.
Born on July 18, 1635, Hooke was mostly educated at home by his father, although he also served an apprenticeship to an artist. Hooke so impressed his teachers at Oxford that he soon became an assistant to the famous chemist Robert Boyle. In 1662 Hooke was named Curator of Experiments of the newly formed Royal Society of London and later Professor of Geometry at Gresham College in London. Yet beyond all this, if you can imagine more, Hooke's reputation comes largely from his book Micrographia, published in 1665. Using a compound microscope and illumination system of his own design – naturally! – he observed a wide range of organisms and illustrated them with beautifully detailed drawings. The book was an instant success, though one critic ridiculed Hooke for paying attention to such trifling pursuit, noting that he “spent 2000£ in Microscopes, to find out the nature of Eels in Vinegar, Mites in Cheese, and the Blue of Plums which he has subtly found out to be living creatures." Even in the heady world of innovation, it seems, you cannot please everyone.
Hooke invented, among many other things, the universal joint, the iris diaphragm, an early prototype of the respirator, and devices for more accurate clocks. As the Chief Surveyor, he helped rebuild London after the Great Fire of 1666. As a theorist, he developed the theory of combustion, devised Hooke's Law, studied the physics of gases, and the list goes on and on.
Hooke even realized, two and a half centuries before Darwin, that the fossil record documented changes among the organisms on the planet, and that species have both appeared and gone extinct throughout the history of life on Earth.
Born on July 18, 1635, Hooke was mostly educated at home by his father, although he also served an apprenticeship to an artist. Hooke so impressed his teachers at Oxford that he soon became an assistant to the famous chemist Robert Boyle. In 1662 Hooke was named Curator of Experiments of the newly formed Royal Society of London and later Professor of Geometry at Gresham College in London. Yet beyond all this, if you can imagine more, Hooke's reputation comes largely from his book Micrographia, published in 1665. Using a compound microscope and illumination system of his own design – naturally! – he observed a wide range of organisms and illustrated them with beautifully detailed drawings. The book was an instant success, though one critic ridiculed Hooke for paying attention to such trifling pursuit, noting that he “spent 2000£ in Microscopes, to find out the nature of Eels in Vinegar, Mites in Cheese, and the Blue of Plums which he has subtly found out to be living creatures." Even in the heady world of innovation, it seems, you cannot please everyone.
The most famous image in the book deserves our special attention because it is
a lovely mix of art and science.
It is a delicate drawing by Hooke of thin slices of cork seen under his
microscope and which revealed the cellular structure of plants. In fact, it was Hooke who coined the term
"cells" because the pattern reminded him of the cells of a
monastery. Along with Leeuwenhoek,
who discovered the world of bacteria and protozoa through his own microscope,
Hooke was one of the founders of the revolution in biology.
Hooke was what we would call a polymath, a Renaissance man, an artist/scientist or many other compound names. But I like to think of him as a designer, studying the way of the world and devising clever ways of altering it.
Hooke was what we would call a polymath, a Renaissance man, an artist/scientist or many other compound names. But I like to think of him as a designer, studying the way of the world and devising clever ways of altering it.
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