“Artist” is maybe one of the most abused terms: it stands for almost anything:

1. The maker of something which looks useless at first sight (”What is it for?” “Don’t know. Don’t ask: this is art”)
2. Commonly: someone who expresses himself and his/her inner world making stuff. Useless stuff many times. Most of the times. Always.
3. A self defined “artist” is someone who doesn’t want to be bothered into explaining what he/she does something and why. He/she does something and that’s all folks.

Two definitions

Artist: someone who expresses him/herself for the sake of it. It doesn’t matter (it should not matter) whether there’s an audience or not. He/she has to bring something out of his/her life/mind/body and offer it to the world.

Designer: he/she thinks and designs and hopefully therefore produces an object or more. This thing should have at least two proprieties:

1. It’s got a function (what is it for?)
2. It’s meant to be sold and it should allow the designer and the maker (usually not the same person) to make money out of it.

You can consider it from many points of view, but in the end an object of design must have a function and should perform well on the market.

How to sell an object of design like it was bread

Well, there’s no golden rule: many well designed and usefull objects are not successful in the end, while many others — who knows why — are. Maybe the latter meet the public taste, maybe they come at the right time (same, on the other hand, happens to failures).
Some designers are very good at feeling and understanding how the tastes/fashion go: they are able to do the right thing at the right time. Some come too early, some at the right time, some too late.

A designer ain’t an artist

Since he/she has to sell his creation he/she are busy doing something with 2 very specific tasks: function and market. Work fine, sell even better.

An artist shouldn’t have to behave like that: the task is to express him/herself, but the market should not be an issue. If the artistic product (with “product” I mean only what becomes reality out of an artistic mind) sells well, well, you’ll soon received a call from Mr Gagosian.

The concept of function

One key to address the issue lies in the inner function: an artistic thing’s function is being an artistic thing in itself. The function of an object of design is giving answer to expressed or yet unexpressed issues. And then sell it.

In the end, “for” is the key: “What is it for?” and its answers define what is design and what is art. Art can be self-referenced while design cannot. Design has many functions and the most important is “it sells well”.