Design is journalism

well… no, but it‘s like journalism

Design is like journalism in some way. You can be a very good writer, you can have an excellent literary technic, you can rule synonyms, antonyms, alliterations, metaphors, etc. But this is not enough to being a journalist who writes and essay or a report. You have to know the topic, understand it, soak yourself in it.

Design is the same. You can be a great designer, you can have very good design skills, rule the typography, master the software, know the colour palette, etc. But if you don’t know the field where you are applying your design you will fail. Your designer skills are worthless if you don’t know the field rules, how these rules are being applied and why. It’s not the same designing a typographical paper poster than an UI app screen.

Maybe this is obvious but I’m sure that there are clueless designers who don’t know it or doesn’t want to know it.