It has happened several times already, to me, and twice just in the beginning of this year till now.  When I ride the subway, I am enclosed in a tube that travels fast in a darkened tunnel.  The noise is a din, and sometimes, the subway car will shake and rattle….  And thankfully, it has not yet rolled.

During the ride, I will sometimes turn my head to look out the window.  And, on occasion, I have seen full-grown, rotund in girth, men….  Standing inside the tunnel, inches from being brushed hard and forcefully by the subway car.  They are often in helmets and reflective vests, as well as their construction pants.  It is a startle each and every single time.

I have been reflecting on this phenomenon, and it leads me to ponder the ideas that men have about “Design.”

There is a museum in Toronto, the Museum of Contemporary Design, called the Design Exchange, that I visited around the time I first happened to spot one of the many men of the TTC standing in the tunnels….  Almost  as if I was only going to get my questions about the oddity of men’s behavior answered.

Just thinking about fifty-year-old engineers gleefully measuring out the inches in a tunnel is a funny thought.  It makes me chuckle a little, but also, to turn my “fun hat” around and think more seriously about “design.”  Building buildings and tunnels and bridges takes a lot of money.  The type of money that governments of the world hold and spend.  So, would there actually be a fifty-year-old engineer, gleefully mapping out the construction of a subway and the tunnels, just thinking in passing, of creating enough space for utility and safety…  Or…., would this engineer be without care, spending enormous amounts of money just to have some fun?

So, being unable to justify spending millions on a few extra inches, I went to the only place that was open to the public that dealt with the study of design–The Design Exchange.

The day I decided to go to the museum, was a hot, sunny, August day.  I decided to wak there from the office I work in.  It was around time to leave the office and go home for dinner, and, surprisingly, since I did not do this very often, I noted that a lot of people choose to walk a few blocks rather than stand in the heat and eventually sweat in the sauna of a transit streetcar.  It took me twenty minutes to get there.  I got reprieve from the many tall office buildings.  It was almost as if tall and large buildings are built in the new world of summer heat just to be enough shade that interior city streets can be kept cool by the buildings’ enormous shadows.  The Design Exchange is just in the south end of the Business District, and is, itself, housed in a very tall building.  It is on Toronto’s Stock Exchange street, Bay Street, which is equivalent to New York’s Wall Street.

Inside the front lobby, which was spacious with a two storey ceiling, the materials for a display on printmaking, bookbinding, and eReaders was placed near the entranceway.  It felt welcoming as the objects looked familiar and this made me think that I wouldn’t have to read all the written material and feel completely lost to the meaning.

There were many examples of print, and a history of print font, starting from the Bible to Newspapers and Magazines, and even into the digital print font that we are all now surrounded by, more than anything that is printed on paper.  The display only dealt with the international language, English, rather than any other print font of another language.  But I am sure I understand the idea of the change in font throughout history.

Inside an alcove just behind the main display was a somewhat smaller, more artistic, display of books on shelves of different heights.  It was a mini-review of the design of the book cover over the decades as the printed word became more and more accessible and saleable.  Finally, the last part I looked at was a written piece about the utility of the eReader in comparison to the longevity of the printed book.  This essay, by a prominent editor, might be floating around the internet right now in one incarnation or another.

After this gold-mine, I still had the “Store” to visit.  It was another display of objects and art that involve design.  Practically everything was in it….  If not in object form, then in the form of a picture.  No mention of money was ever made in this mini-museum display, but my understanding is that advanced civilizations are very minutely designed in everything.  This is an area of work that is rewarding, probably both monetarily and socially.  Designing things that are useful, fun, surprising, pleasing, accommodating, and, that others can find and want, is a true career.  There is no end to the work that needs to be done, and therefore no end to the job.  There will always be money in Art and Desgin.  I am thinking back to the men in the tunnel.  I am sure they find the “neatness” of being able to continue their work even when trains keep running through, and past, them, one of the reprieves of their job.  It would probably take more than double the time to do what it is they do, if they could only work when there were no trains running by.

In life, making money and having lots of friends while doing it, is truly rewarding.  It is almost a requirement in the job description to make it happen successfully.  I think I am truly envious AND jealous of all designers.  In my next life, I will become what is becoming….  A practitioner of that which rules the world.