Design is not a project
Originally posted on May 11, 2010
Its a common theme. When I started work right out of school, I thought I knew a lot about what good design was. It was the award-winners in Communication Arts annuals and other magazines I would comb through on the racks at Borders. It was the work of legends like Paul Rand, the the unreadable type treatment of David Carson, and anything Apple.
My first client work at Studio Archetype/Sapient was for HP’s eServices in 1999, and I was damned if I were to design a site without overlapping words. Surely, HP would understand and appreciate the value of such ‘cutting-edge’ design, and I would be an instant design rockstar on my way to climbing the ladder of greatness. I would have books dedicated to me like Tibor Kalman. I’d start a design firm and make plastic wrapped books. Who cared about HP’s brand guidelines? What were those? Weren’t we hired to tell them how to design an award-winning website?
Presentation day came and I waited for my Design Director to leave the meeting to give me the good news. That the client was overwhelmed with the brilliance of unreadable and un-renderable type. And when he finally appeared and I asked what they thought of my design, I was told it wasn’t even presented. Needless to say, that would be the first of many disappointments in my route to growth and maturity.
Looking back, I start to laugh out loud at my ignorance, and then I realize that it hasn’t really left. I’ve learned a lot over the past eleven years to know better. I’ve matured as a designer, and have come to fully realize that the underpinnings of design, its strength is grounded in research, understanding, and humility. However, it would be disingenuous of me to think that I have lost all traces of ignorance. To deny the fact that there is still room to grow, and learn from others.
Design is too big for such small thinking. Its not images, typographic treatments, Photoshop/Flash mastery, nor thought alone. These are all things that have a beginning, middle, and end.
Design is how we live our lives and how we communicate with each other, and therefore, has no aspect of ‘finality’.
However, its not words either. We need to be careful that we don’t become salesmen. That we use words that fall in line with what others expect to hear. There are many out there, directors in particular, who have forgotten what it means to be a designer. They reach back into their library of phrases, they know what others want to hear, and they’re able to deliver ‘solutions’ that are so conceptual that they become New Age Oracles. That’s not to say that conceptual thinking is bad, but its not the apex of design. It doesn’t make one a great designer. It makes one a great speaker.
There will always be problems in the world that need to be solved. Design is not a project. It’s the basis of human thought and communication.
By continually challenging ourselves find design in ignorance.
What are you waiting for? Challenge me. :)
