Laszlo Moholy-Nagy on what designing means.

Co-founder of the Bauhaus movement, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy:

Designing is not a profession but an attitude. Design has many connotations. It is the organization of materials and processes in the most productive way, in a harmonious balance of all elements necessary for a certain function. It is the intergration of technological, social, and economical requirements, biological necessities, and the psychological effects of materials, shape, color, volume and space. Thinking in relationships.

I remember being surprised to see one of his pieces on permanent display at the MoMA in New York.  The surprise came not at first sight but upon reading the small information card citing him as the creator through a rather innovative process for the time. That the small piece, a rectangle containing a few lines and boxes at dynamic angles, was made by Moholy-Nagy directly calling in the design to the press, without any direct visual exchange or proof between the designer and the producer.