A few days ago I presented a work proposal in which, among other texts, I used the word redesign to refer to the assignment. I considered that the goal was precisely to redesign an existing product.

My surprise was that the people who received the document asked about the term and clarified their position quite directly: “We don’t want a redesign. We want it new. We’d rather you build it from scratch because we trust your judgment.”

I do not know what their previous experience had been with the product or with the team that had worked on it, but their words suggested a certain rejection of anything that resembled what had already been published. Beyond that nuance, the comment made me reflect, once again, on how delicate client communication can be. A single word can change a project’s direction entirely or even cause a misunderstanding of scope. And then the inevitable question arises: design or redesign?

Design or redesign

If we adopt a superficial interpretation, design could be understood as the ideation and creation of something completely new, with no prior existence, accompanied by a creative process of planning and innovation. This definition, however, is incomplete, because it leaves out essential dimensions such as the technological, functional, aesthetic, emotional, or strategic.

Under this approach, design ends up being seen as an individual, almost heroic contribution in which an inspired designer “sculpts” an original solution, independent and detached from any previous influence.

Redesign, by contrast, is relegated to a secondary position. It is interpreted as a mere update of something existing, a cosmetic exercise that improves just enough, looks nice, and, with luck, optimizes certain functional or economic aspects. Fortunately, that was not what was expected of me.

When designing does not mean starting from scratch

Following that reasoning, the alternative seemed clear: sit in front of a notebook, remove any distractions, and start from scratch, as if nothing had existed before. A plan that, in addition to being unrealistic, was highly questionable.

Before taking that stance, I decided to revisit the meaning of both concepts more carefully. It was then that I discovered that, luckily, neither designing nor redesigning necessarily means starting from nothing.

Jan Michl, emeritus professor of Design Theory and History at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design and adjunct professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, published in 2002 the article On Seeing Design as Redesign. In it he analyzes, with great clarity, the relationship between design and redesign, and puts forward arguments that I consider especially valuable for professional practice.

In the text, Michl explains that the term redesign is useful to distinguish between solutions that an organization already has and needs to improve, and those it plans to develop from scratch, at least from its own point of view:

It is useful in all the situations in which designers want to distinguish between solutions that a firm or organisation already has and needs to improve, and those which the organisation plans to acquire and which, from the firm’s point of view, must be developed from scratch.

Design as a continuous process

Throughout history, the notion of design has been associated with the individual creation of an original, unique, finished product, as if it were not influenced by previous solutions, approaches, or visions.

Terms that we use in that context, expressions such as to be influenced, to be inspired, to take over a solution, to start out from, to build further on or to steal are used with an apologetic or accusatory undertone, as though they implied a reprehensible lack of independence on the part of the designer.

However, as Michl notes, a designer’s work almost always begins where other designers left off, or even where the same designer left their own work previously. From this perspective, a design is never definitively finished, nor can it be considered a final solution. In many cases, what we deliver are acceptable solutions within real constraints.

Each redesign of a complex product integrates previous contributions and is built on existing solutions. The result is necessarily collective, evolutionary, and collaborative, although we often forget it.

The real problem arises when we conceive design as an individual, isolated, immutable creation, associated with a single authorship or a supposedly original creative process. In reality, every time we design we are redesigning, and every time we redesign we incorporate new meanings and new decisions on a prior legacy.

Designing is continuing

I probably won’t explain all of this to my client, but in a way they were right. They wanted a new design, and that is exactly what I will offer, building on the work of those who created the product that exists today. Thanks to those designers, to colleagues who share their work, and to the accumulated history of the discipline, it is possible to build better solutions.

It is also thanks to how easily we can access texts like Jan Michl’s, reflections that question basic assumptions in design education and remind us that creating does not mean starting from scratch, but knowing how to continue with judgment. That judgment is also shaped by learning from mistakes.

Final note

This article contains two important narrative licenses. The first is that the phrase “because we trust your judgment” was not spoken literally, although it did become evident in later conversations. The second is that I already knew Michl’s article before the anecdote. The story needed a starting point and a conflict, and both have been deliberately constructed to shape this reflection.