What is Grain?
Grain Design is a methodology where design emerges from constraint. It begins not with story or aesthetics, but with technology, limitations, and structure. Like the grain of wood, constraints define direction and integrity. Design aligns with that grain to produce elegant, emergent systems—and from those systems, narrative and meaning arise.
Origin of the Name
"Grain" evokes working with natural direction—just as a craftsman works with the grain of wood or fabric, designers using this philosophy work with the "grain" of technological constraints. To go against it is friction. To align with it is clarity, emergence, and flow.
The Flow of Grain
Grain is built on a flow:
- Technology / Constraint: What is possible, what is limited, what is new.
- Design Mechanics: What systems and interactions arise from those constraints.
- Emergent Meaning: What narrative, feeling, or understanding comes from interaction with those systems.