Design is a thing which is open to interpretation and prone to re-definitions. Defining what is "Good Design" is even more controversial and toughter. Design is essentially contextual and thus is good if it can function properly for the targeted used. This definition leaves a lot to explain and explore.

When reading a Zen book, we realised that it's teachings are so much ingrained in the process and the outcome of design. The teachings and the practice of meditation are a wonderful source of knowledge for any design professional. 

It's when a design does not feel like it has been "designed" but feels intuitive and natural, is when it is a good design. Just like when you stop thinking about thoughtlessness is when you are actually thoughtless.

 Here's something more to elucidate it:

When choosing what meal combo to order at a fast-food joint, do you know what helps you in making that choice? The graphics on the counter, the delicious description that the person at the counter gives you or the advertisement you saw in the morning paper?

If asked, I am sure all of us would give the above or many other answers. But a recent study suggests that before we make a decision, our brain knows about it as much as 8seconds in advance. The research has been done by Joydeep Bhattacharya at Goldsmiths’ College in London and Bhavin Sheth at the University of Houston.

"Those volunteers who went on to have an insight (in this case that on their one and only visit to the second floor they could use not just the light but the heat produced by a bulb as evidence of an active switch) had had different brainwave activity from those who never got it. In the right frontal cortex, a part of the brain associated with shifting mental states, there was an increase in high-frequency gamma waves (those with 47-48 cycles a second). Moreover, the difference was noticeable up to eight seconds before the volunteer realised he had found the solution. Dr Sheth thinks this may be capturing the “transformational thought” (the light-bulb moment, as it were) in action, before the brain’s “owner” is consciously aware of it."  - Incognito - Evidence mounts that brains decide before their owners know about it.

This suggests that most of our cognition and decision making happens in advance. This is a fact that design, designers and design thinkers have been aware of in a way and used extensively. Design works on a deep emotional and sub-conscious level. The experience and impression it creates in your mind and how you become aware of it is the most critical part of designing a product or service. 

The second-order understanding which is unique to the discipline of design, mentioned in the book The Semantic Turn by Klaus Krippendorff, is very much in-line with this research. Second-order understanding refers to understanding the experience of the various people experiences a product and service, and using this understanding to create better experiences.

Further, the research also iterates that the usual research methods of direct questioning, focus groups, etc. might not give one the correct answer, as almost 95% of our cognition is on a sub-conscious level. People rationalise their decisions which are not always rational. Therefore, there is a large need to use design tools to research and design a better world.

Money is something that gives you power to get something you want when you give it away. After discussions we realized that money is just commodities in exchange. Money is worthless unless it exchanges hands, unless it flows. Just like the flow of money is critical to the functioning of money, so is water essential to our existence. Therefore we took the metaphor of water to explain our view on money.
Just like water changes forms, so does money. Ice is like gold, realty, etc., liquid is like cash and gas is like credit cards, stock and virtual money.

Just like water, there is an unequal distribution of money around the world. Very few have access to it and most of it is saturated in the hands of a few. Like the glaciers are the largest source of fresh water (68%), the same way the rich of today are the glaciers of money,holding it with themselves and not letting it flow. There is a scarcity of water and just like water, money is not valued properly. We cannot do without either money or water.

Also when water stagnates and there is no flow or movement, it becomes infected and unfit for use. Various insects start breeding and the water becomes dirty. Similarly, without flow money becomes useless. It is only a few pieces of paper, after all, to which we assign value.

To sum the concepts in the most laconic manner, wealth refers to any asset of value to self or others, it could be tangible things like currency, house, gold, health and also intangibles like happiness, security, fulfillment etc. We as humans have been creating, harnessing, giving and acquiring wealth. Money is the most innovative creation of mankind. A mediator to facilitate the exchange of wealth .Singularly it was not feasible for man to acquire all the wealth that he aspired. He realized his abundance of a particular sort of wealth was wished by another man who had something else of abundance. This realization led to a concept of exchange of wealth‐ ”barter”. Barter had a shortcoming of the coincidence of double wants, where by the commodities being exchanged we equally desired by the two parties. To do away with this and other shortcomings, MONEY was created by man. Money is a tangible commodity which has an attached value, its purpose is to facilitate the exchange of wealth. Over the ages the actual function of money has been forgotten, Money instead of being a medium of exchange of wealth is being misunderstood as wealth, true it falls under the subset of wealth but it is not everything.
In times of recession the fluidity in the economy reduces. The wealth does not decrease but it’s movement slows. What is required in such times is interventions that would keep the transactions going and the circle moving.

Design as a word is difficult to define in an all inclusive definition .On a basic level design can be understood as an intended process which fulfills a need. The process, creation and outcome is thought keeping the entire context and lifecycle is mind and often finding the problem is half the work done. The problem in recession is the loss in fluidity of money; designs can be created to counter this situation.

Find needs that can be answered and come out with solutions that fit into the picture in such a way that the whole system is affected in the desired way.