Design

In different languages, i.e. in different cultural environments, words of different etymology are used as labels of a concept of design. Let us examine the most characteristic ones.

In English, it is design itself based on the Latin designo “to define,” “to point out,” “to mark,” “to form”; and dissigno “to unseal,” “to manage.” In many languages (whether Anglo-Saxon or not) design, taken this time from the English not from the Latin, means “industrial design,” i.e. design with an aesthetic flavor, e.g. disseny in Catalan, diseno in Castilian (Spanish), estetique industerille in French. Also, French equivalents for design are dessein, which means “intention,” or dessin, which means “pattern” (Polish deseñ decorative design).