Is the design philosophy, form follows Function, still relevant? I think so. And I feel thats it's even more relevant than before due to the digital demands of responsive design, Apps, the multitude of moniter sizes, and a plethora of other demands that create constrictions. 

When I was younger, my younger brother would ask:

“Hey, how come when you draw something, it looks cool, it looks real?”

He was basically referring to a plane I had drawn, the wings had missiles and bombs to where it Looked fierce, yet it looked like it could still fly. 

It was designed to battle, and that made it look cool. It had just the right amount of ammunition and weaponry that made it look fierce and functional, but it still looked like it could fly. It still looked like a functional design. Design is form. Function is what it does. 

My response to my brother, with a limited vocabulary that I had at 10, was that the plane had to look cool, but it had to have Purpose. There needed to be a purpose in why there were so many bombs it could carry. Or how many missiles it would have, or where the machine guns were placed by the nose, or near the engine intake, and how would that affect how it would work. 

If you hadn't considered all these things, imagine the fun that could of have been lost when playing with an unrealistic thing.

If that design doesn't serve a purpose, it loses its functionality as well as its design.

I feel like many designers encounter this moment when they are told:

“Make something cool” 

This is where there is a great deal of considerable thought used for that moment from a designer's perspective: Where one can realize that even something 'cool' serves a purpose.  

Find out more about Form Follows Function by looking into the golden ratio, where science and nature come together to explain why every persons fingers, arms, limbs, are equal to a ratio, one that Leanardo DiVinci came across. He refers to it as the Divine Proportions, or the golden rule. It seems that our own body, along with nature's creations, have set proportions. Another instance of Form follows function? 

Cheers,

Z Gevorkian