From what I've read in the last two weeks I've learned this much: design is like water, it comes in a variety of quality and clarity, in abundance or scarcity, both under valued and under appreciated at the same time.
Design is everywhere, it's talked about everywhere, it's for sale everywhere, it's practiced everywhere. It is ingrained in global culture from street signs to home interiors, newspapers to product packaging.
Design as a verb is overused everywhere, even in places where a proper vocabulary would mandate the use of a different descriptor.
I, myself, design websites while She Who Is to Be Adored and Cherished designs distillation facilities for jet fuel. My mother-in-law designs interiors of hotels, while my father-in-law has designed an environmentally sound process for extracting oil out of the ground. The word is ubiquitous and while correctly applicable to each of these trades does nothing but water-down its meaning.
It's an overexposed word in an instant message, Target-ad-campaign world. And as long as that word continues to be beat into the ground we'll get statements like: "You're a designer? Oh, so am I! Got Canonical?"
Of course much of this has to do with problems in the education of design. We used to let universities and colleges certify the educated and expert but now that's left to "design things" like Photoshop and IKEA and Apple and blog software.
Join the fray by reading through and commenting at the end.
So who are the decorators?
I'll be the first to admit I'm tired of "design." I cringe when people ask me what I do because I can't avoid the word. I'll also add to the list, "rich media" and "technology." There are a ton more but you get the picture.
I'm just tired.
I, too, wrote about this, going so far as to try and define the word "design." The word's blatant misuse goes far beyond annoying--it's more like a lack of understanding of what design actually is.
You said: We used to let universities and colleges certify the educated and expert but now that's left to "design things" like Photoshop and IKEA and Apple and blog software.
That's a great line and, oh, so true! But what are we to do now? Stop using the term? Should we coin something new? Should we be more specific about which particular design processes we involve ourselves in?
I'm not being sarcastic. I agree with the term's overuse and misuse. Everyone is a designer. And what isn't designed?
Where do we go from here?
> Where do we go from here?
I don't think we get to go anywhere, unfortunately. The best thing to do is continued education in our own discipline and learn how to counter the thesis and commentary from others who think they know better than us.
Very few options are available. Forming a union is one of them, but that's an unnecessary evil that can have short-term gain but long-term punishment.
universities are terrible at certifying design. If you want to have a certified profession, that's not the way to go about it. The things I learned in school don't really affect my work experience. The things I learned that are absolute core competencies day in day out, weren't part of the curriculum. Many of the people who went on to get masters degrees, didn't learn them. Maybe it's not true of all design professions, but coming from architecture, which is a regulated word, and certified by national agencies, education is nothing. You can't teach design.
> Where do we go from here?
We can start by learning how to say No. No to projects run counter to our personal morals. This is hard.
Design is a means to a solution much like art is a means to expression. Design requires a problem and if that problem is something like "we need to sell more Hostess Cup Cakes" then as designers we need to make the decision, is this really a problem?
It helps to not pollute the water in the first place.
Giving a bad name to Uptons everywhere...
well aint that the truth and a half...
well said! Especially the analogy to water, after and while reading it, all that kept popping into my head was "BRILLIANT!"
Every-time I tell someone I am a Designer, they look at me as though I just told them nothing, even when I add on "Graphic" they still are confused, so I always have to go into a series of skills, or rather jobs that I perform before they finally realize what I do.
Design is a skill that all humans (and some animals) possess. It's hard to 'overuse' such a word as design.
My gripe is not using identifiers before the term. We're all designers. But some of us focus on specific aspects of it. Others of us design in specific environments.
The word design is great. It just needs more context when used to make it more palatable.
For some reason, a few professions have tried to take the term 'design' as the sole term for what they do:
- Fashion design
- Interior Decorating
- That Dyson dude
They're just guilty of being lazy with their terminology.
In terms of education, my gripe is that there isn't MORE design skills taught more broadly to more folks in more professions.
Now, if the actual intent of the topic is to discuss 'certification' then we need to first get more specific about what type of design we're talking about certifying.
"You can't teach design."
You can teach the skills and processes that help people become better designers.
"Every-time I tell someone I am a Designer, they look at me as though I just told them nothing"
Well, I have to agree going back to my original point. ;o)
But, yea, 'graphic designer' could be a term better understood out there in the wild.
I had a professor that told us we were aspiring to be "Type Decorators."
I think certification is weird though. My S.W.I.T.B.A.A.C. is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist. She took a written test, and now she can put CTRS on the end of her name tag! I'm not sure a lot of people that call themselves graphic/web designers would pass the written test, opting instead to create an interesting pattern on the bubble answer sheet.
Great post and interesting discussion. I recently visited Japan for the first time and was struck by how ingrained "design" seems to be in everything that they do -- from packaging design to pastries.
There's an innate appreciation for beauty and that seems to drive their product decisions more than cheap production, low cost and efficiency that drives many of the same decisions in the US. I think this is a partial explanation for the high cost of living.
This is just my impression of Japan after spending a week there, but I encourage anyone that's interested in design to go and see for yourself.
Blake: "What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? "
Good Design is a Good Life and a Good Life is a Good Design.
Sometimes when I read your posts, I yell "PREACH!"
Preaching I am and hear we go I love the internet but since I was pretty young when I started taking school to become a designer online and with personal relationship jealousy problems with my ex I wasnt able to jump right in and become rich like Bill Gates. So because of this downfall my ideas and and everything I ve ever put into trying to make a carrer of the online imdustry has robbed me for anything including my poetry. So I guess that makes me a freaking decorator. I am not priveleged enough to have a credit card the government like to work against me as well as any one else I know despite the fact that I would give the shirt off my back if I thought it would help this god forsaken world.
I'm busy designing a response to this discussion. I'll post it when I am finished.
As I stand, stainless-tongs in hand, tearing the carbon crust off the surface of my Weber grill as I flip and sizzle my way to a protein-abundant dinner, I now realize that I am not just grilling a steak, I'm designing it...
So its a word that has a lot of meanings, these are first for each part of speech
Transitive verb (?):
1. To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent (design a good excuse for not attending the conference)
Intransitive verb(?)
1. To make or execute plans.
Noun
1. A drawing or sketch.
So invent, make plans, and sketch. It covers a lot of ground. I think that we all are bothered by how it is used because we have a since of high moral purpose (like God designed the universe) conflicting with low moral purpose (coporate designed ad campaigns). If you design, like I do, you want to be the good samurai or hired gun for your clients, because there is always a "client". Which means ou want a moral client who has an ethically sound purpose (there i salways a purpose to design).
I think that the lack of purpose puts me off. I hear designers talk only of the "look". I want what I do to be aesthetically good, but I design to a purpose and that often informs me of what the aesthetic should be.