After reading through the bios of many designers, and talking with a few of the good ones, I say few because frankly there are so few identifiable good designers, it comes to my attention there would probably be a huge benefit to explaining in simple terms what being a designer means.
It doesn’t mean designing.
There. I’ve said it.
What it means, is being a problem solver. A professional. A creator and a decider.
Once you get fairly deep into your career, it becomes clear that very little about design is “design” that is, pretty pictures, or color matching or organic substance or nominative invasion of white space or typography or texture or lighting. None of that matters.
It does, of course, but you learn to say your needs the farther you go – to see what makes a good composition and begin to ask for the legitimate parts of the puzzle you need to complete your work.
There is an eye for design. You do grow sharp and wizened in some aspect of your brain that says, gently, like a surgeon performing a delicate cut to swivel here, or breathe there. All of this happens without notice, and through practice, and discussion and the taking on of different styles. You learn that just like riding a bicycle. There’s no mystery there. Practice is it.
But…
The thing that separates the legitimate designers from the “real” designers is an understanding of the real task at hand. Young headstrong designers want to unshackle themselves from design. They want to invent that never before seen work of art that is such a reflection of their brilliance everyone will suddenly see they were all wrong, and everyone will do it this fantastic new way from now on. In short, this is the ego of the inexperienced. It’s the art of picking up the right tool, and not knowing how to use it anyway. Frequently though, legitimate designers are sent the right spork, but melted in 400 degree heat before hand. Or they will receive the iron without the cord. That sort of thing. The client gapes. But it’s an iron. You should KNOW how to use it. The last designer did. And so you point out, this is an iron, missing the cord. Well the last designer used it without the cord, they will tell you, even if you have expressed every diplomatic way possible this simply could not possibly be the case. Design conventions are there to be understood. Not used. Not followed. Understood. They are road signs. If you can read them, great. But if you can’t, don’t kick them down in frustration yelling “my sign!” or worse, lay them out like you know how to use them in some cargo cult to FEMA.
It never stops amazing me the number of people who will work as hard as possible to have their say about a design, when in reality what they want is something different entirely that would never work for the treatment proposed, but which they simply haven’t been able to let go of yet. What they want is their way, client and reality oh well. And this is why “real” designers aren’t around the bend yet.
Anyone who feels the need to categorize “real” designers doesn’t get that for every big name out there, there are twenty thousand legitimate designers, working designers we’ll call them, quietly creating designs that inspire and blend so well in their attempt to convey what they were meant that they become almost invisible. The designs and the designers. Invisible. The way it should be. Like gnomes.
There’s this Juvenal last hurrah in trying to avoid admitting there is a formula, this need to glorify their abilities and fret against clarity. If you just discuss it honestly and write it down and make a style guide out of it, no puppies get slaughtered. It was never really as if they did, except where control is concerned.
Instead there is this need to personify design as some kind of jedi like occupation, where you’re just supposed to “know.” “Good design is just good design.” Actually, tautology club is about tautologies. Design is about good, clear communication, and user experience conventions, and understanding if you want to be headstrong and introduce a new metaphor – how in hades to do that rather than taking it out on your audience. It’s about successful metaphor blending. It’s about narrative. People who looked overwhelmed by this rather droll truth are missing the forest for the trees. The huge potential to create something genuinely useful is lost as they toddle off in search of something genre bending, edgy, or counterculture. Live another twenty years and the whole concept of counterculture becomes clear. At first blush I’m sure it sounds alluring. Of course it does, it was sold that way. Congratulations on being owned by a successful design.
No doubt some very intent designer created it, probably in a suit and tie, or lo and behold, one of those T shirts you think only grandmothers wear and a pair of convenience store sneakers. Someone who does not try as hard to be cool as you do. Someone who is a legitimate designer. Someone who knows how to read the road signs and isn’t frightened to ask for a map. Someone pragmatic. Someone who doesn’t need to intimidate because they actually have the answers.
You know what camp you’re in and what camp everyone else is in when they twiddle their thumbs trying to keep the process as veiled as possible. This is as common as rain. As a young pup I’d quake in my boots, assuming it really must be me. Now I see it for the puppy mill it really is. The moderate success at brutalizing young designers into creating something or other closer to what clients think they want doesn’t make someone who practices this form of intimidation any more legitimate of a designer than an artist who hangs a canvas on a wall that’s a single color. They haven’t figured out how to simmer down and get to work yet. About the only thing that does it is age. Age and experience, and not getting flustered when someone uncomfortable with the whole process decides to make a bid as the only game in town.
What’s your take?
That’s mine. I drive these idiots crazy now. Happily. They want so badly to intimidate. Designers are supposed to be untidy and childlike and unkempt and easily administered and admonished. If you’re not all of that, you’re supposed to be young and blond and leggy and giggles and dimples and so feminine you never get cramps or understand a dirty joke. You get to the point where you are a legitimate designer, and you’ll see. Hang on until then.
