What is Design?

Your favorite armchair, the ads on the highway, the pictures on an office wall, books in a book store, this website, your home, the packaging of TV dinners, the taxis outside. What do all these things have in common? You guessed it — they are all designed. What is design you might ask? Todd Johnston from Forbes defines design as ‘marking out.’

“To design is to mark out a pattern as a means of making meaning of an experience. A design marks out a vision for what can be; the act of designing is to move with intent to close the gap between existing conditions and that vision.”

Design helps us make meaning of things. Be it graphic design, industrial design, or interior design, they all help us to interpret and experience the objects and information around us.

Another definition by designer Richard Seymour, is ‘making things better for people’. It implies that design activity is focused foremost on quality of life.

But design isn’t just about the surface. Aesthetics are important, but only a minuscule part of design. Design is all around us. In an article published at Hong Kong University, design is said to impact us in every part of our lives.

“Design is fundamental. People often need reminding that everything around us is designed and that design decisions impact on nearly every part of our lives, be it the environments we work in, the way we book holidays, or the way we go about getting get the lid off the jam jar. Good design begins with the needs of the user. No design, no matter how beautiful and ingenious, is any good if it doesn’t fulfil a user need.”

Design is very much about the user. It is about usability and communication. Designers must find out what the audience needs, then create something that works with use of creativity and insight. The Design Coucil defines design “as an activity that translates an idea into a blueprint for something useful.” We should not approach design with the idea that it is made for pleasure or decoration.

Art also has origins in usability. The Story of Art discusses this matter.

“Originally [pieces of art] were made to be touched and handled, they were bargained about, quarreled about, worried about. For most of the paintings and statues which are now lined up along the walls of our museums and galleries were not meant to be displayed as Art. They were made for a definite occasion and a definite purpose which were in the artist’s mind when he set to work.”

So what then, is the difference between art and design? I believe that are and design started out as one in the same. In the past paintings and statues were not thought of as works of art but as objects which had a definite function. But over time, art developed into something created to look beautiful, to please the eye of the viewer and not so much to be used for a specific purpose.

“Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design…is their purposes. Typically, the process of creating a work of art starts with nothing, a blank canvas. A work of art stems from a view or opinion or feeling that the artist holds within him or herself. By contrast, when a designer sets out to create a new piece, they almost always have a fixed starting point, whether a message, an image, an idea or an action. The designer’s job isn’t to invent something new, but to communicate something that already exists, for a purpose.”

The main purpose of design is to communicate a message and to motivate the audience to do something. Whereas art, has become more aesthetic and decorative. Design is everywhere, and is becoming increasingly important. Design moves us to act, has a specific purpose, and communicates relevant information that already existed.