"How Good is Good?" and "Good Design is Goodwill" are two pieces of writings which talk about what good design is, and what design could do. Sagmeister and Rand both express various ideas about design, but there must be hundreds of other different theories out there in the world; because "Design" is an activity with no narrow radius. There is design for millions of products, items with diverse uses and aims. The definition of "good design" may differ for a skirt and a city hall; because a role of a design inevitably changes depending on what the item to be designed is for and naturally numerous theories about what "good design" is came into being.
I think that the ideas Sagmeister and Rand propose both presents very exemplary ideas about what a good design should be like, and that good design should contain those factors the writers mention of; such as the spirit for helping others or the harmony between idea and form. However, what I think as the most important factor of "Good design" is the designer's constant study about what the item to be designed is for, and what kind of mental and social effect the item's design will have on people. A skirt for everyday wear design cannot be good if it's uncomfortable, and a advertisement for cosmetics will have harmful effects if its design reproduces ideas of lookism. Design is not some kind of abstract work but is an activity that is for a specific product with a specific role, which will inevitably have some kind of effect on its user and the society. However, this is not something that could be discovered easily, but could only be grasped with designer's incessant effort in trying to understand his material, what it is used for, the historical and cultural meaning the design will have; and I think that this is the heart of what good design really is and a design done without this type of effort, such as a frypan that looks fancy but is too heavy and difficult to use, could become nothing but "Bad Design".
