The heart of design is myth-making.

Design happens in a sea of hyperbole, where corporations try hard to perpetuate the myth that significant innovation is taking place due to their heroic efforts -- that every aspect of the product was created within the confines of the company -- that no ideas needed to come from the outside culture or from a common understanding of the laws of physics.

But the myth is not true. Except in very modest increments, almost nothing new ever gets invented from scratch within any research department. The principals of liquid-fueled rocketry used to propel missions to the Moon in the 1960's were invented in the 1920's by Robert Goddard. The principals of digital computing (so much associated with our sense of high-tech) are based solidly upon theories of logic refined by the Greeks a few thousand years ago.

Despite reality, corporations feel compelled to obscure the facts, knowing that the buyers of their products will pay more if they are somehow convinced that the product has bent the laws of physics, that the company has the inside track on innovation -- that no equivalent or better product is to be found anywhere else, by definition.

And so the designer is confronted with a dilemma: The design must create the mystique of a unique innovation using tools and materials and process ideas that are widely available to anybody. He or she must create something new by mostly re-packaging existing concepts in ways that only look new.

Design at its very heart is myth-making.