8 lessons I learnt at design school.
The things I learnt, and how I changed at the IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay
Design is not a field that is commonly studied, at least here in India. In most of our lives, the word 'design' gets thrown around quite casually, with vague meanings attached to it, the most common meaning being, good-looking.
If you only accept this meaning of the word, i.e., making things pretty, it might make you wonder:
Why would anyone need to study for four years, just to get a Bachelors in Design?
So naturally when I decided to join the IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay for my B. Des., a lot of people asked me why. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know either. I just thought I knew.
Soon I’ll be starting my fourth and final year of study, and looking back, my perspective on design seems to have shifted quite a bit. So, today I’d like to give a shot at explaining what I learn at college, how I’ve changed, and while at it, hopefully end up with a good documentation of this part of my life. If you are a student considering taking up design, someone trying to learn more about IDC School of Design, or even just a curious bystander, I hope this helps you in some way!
Disclaimer: My main interests are in interaction design and visual communication, so I might not be doing justice to the plethora of areas design can be applied in. Also do take everything with a pinch of salt. I’m just a student and I do not intend to preach. These are only my learnings and opinions, and I’d be far from someone you’d call an expert.
1. Design is NOT a new field
With the advent of the digital world and the availability of resources, design has surely developed new avenues. But if you can only trace it to the digital arena, it’s likely because you haven’t paid much attention to it before.
Take a look around. Every thing, right from a simple object to a complex system has been thought of and carefully developed by someone. Design is all about the use of common sense, logic, and maybe some aesthetics to solve a problem and humans have been doing this for quite a long time. We sharpened rocks and turned them into hunting weapons, didn’t we? That was Design, and that’s how old this field is! Every one is a designer actually. We go to design school just to train to be better at it.
Even if you only consider the history of formal training, the first design school, Staatliches Bauhaus, better known as The Bauhaus School of Design was started in 1919. That was over a 100 years ago! Futura, a font that is considered to be modern and trendy by many is actually from 1927. The minimalist trend that we all know of, was a movement in the 1960s.
Sure, the future of design has many stories to tell but the history is deep enough to sink you in thoroughly, and it’s important to understand how homogenous it is to our daily lives.
2. Nothing without purpose
In my first year, there wasn’t much thought put into my work. I’d produce projects which would seemingly look good to me, and expect my professors to fawn over them. But what I did not realise was the importance of function. Every single element in your work has to be questioned: is it good? does it have a purpose? is it justified? if I remove it will it make things worse?
Take a look at this.
This is a poster I made in my first year for the institute music club, Symphony, of which I used to be a convener. It was for an event meant for graduating seniors of the club. Now let’s dissect this.
Why that specific font for the title? Why is it in a box? Why a dark grey border for the poster? Why that barely visible arrow pointing downwards? Why use a stock photo? Why is it in Black and White?
The answer to all this back then was, "I don’t know, I think it looks cool."
If somebody asks me what the purpose of some element in my work is, my only answer cannot be that it looks good. There has to be an acceptable meaning and a reason behind it. Otherwise I’m just here by accident.
If I had to make a poster for the same event now, what would I do? The main job would be to understand the core idea of the event —
Is it a happy or a sad event? Does it have to be sombre or does it have to pop? If it has to be emotional, can I add some photos of the club members? Do I want to overwhelm the viewer, or tease them? What are the colours associated with the theme of the event? Will this poster be released digitally or physically? What is the first, second, and third element that I want people to notice in the poster? Will one poster suffice, or should it be a series? And so on…
Once those decisions have been made, the execution becomes much easier and more streamlined.
3. Visual variety
I used to be quite a fan of minimalism and sophistication. Dark colours with a sans-serif font (mostly Montserrat), filling up spaces with as little number of elements as possible; that was my style! But I was picking the same colours and the same fonts every time I’d set out to make something and that got boring and restraining very quickly.
If I had to do interesting work, I would have to break free from my comfort zone and explore different ideas of visual aesthetics.
I still love the subtlety, but if I need that shocking pink colour to express something, then that’s the only option. I no longer fear using absurd colour combinations or seemingly strange fonts; it’s simply a challenge to make it work, and I’m up for it!
4. Comic Sans is not a bad font
Woah! Controversy much? But really, poor Comic Sans gets too much hate in pop culture today. Every font has its purpose and if you take it out of its intended context, it will obviously be weird. I think Comic Sans is a great typeface for a child’s birthday party; maybe not so great for a political campaign.
It’s not just Comic Sans. Take Didot for example. Didot is a typeface that is generally considered to be 'sophisticated' unlike Comic Sans. It’s the font of the Vogue magazine after all! It has a very high contrast and is only meant to be used at large sizes. Hence, it is categorised as a Display Font. But if you use it at small sizes for body text, you buy yourself a headache from trying to read that text.
This concept should definitely be applied beyond typefaces and it’s common sense really. Your red polka-dotted shorts won’t look that great at a black-tie dinner, will it?
5. Affordance
"Affordance: a use or purpose that a thing can have, that people notice as part of the way they see or experience it". In simpler terms, when an object makes it clear how it is to be used, it is said to have a good affordance.
Consider this knife. It has only one grip. Unless you are a knife thrower, you will always hold it by the handle and not the blade because that is the only comfortable grip available. The handle looks blunt and the blade looks sharp, so it is clear to me how I should use this product.
Now imagine the handle was shiny like stainless steel, and the blade had a matte black texture. Yes, I would still be able to differentiate the handle and blade on the basis of shape, but it is highly possible that I’d make a mistake some day and clench the blade tight. Not cool.
Let’s take another example of these air-vent controls. I was flying from Hyderabad to Mumbai and if you often use air-conditioned transport, you probably know that you must rotate the knob to control the air-flow. But in this particular flight that I was in, I noticed several people trying to push the knob, like a button instead of turning it. At first, I thought they were pretty silly but then upon some thought, I realised where they were probably coming from. The knobs in this aircraft was much wider and flatter than the usual ones, and this form probably reminded people of this common utility product — a thermos flask, or specifically, the cap of a thermos flask.
Often times we end up blaming our users for 'misusing' our products. It’s easy to call those users stupid but in reality, the fault is probably with the design because it is the designers responsibility to understand how their products look and behave with respect to other products.
6. Don't fall in love with your ideas
When you get a sudden idea, it’s a thrilling experience, and if you’ve already spent some time working on that that idea, you’re likely to get attached to it. That isn’t great news because attachment means you’re possibly ignoring some of its flaws. One of my favourite quotes from the show, BoJack Horseman sums up the thought.
"When you look at someone with rose-coloured glasses, all the red flags look just like…flags."
— Wanda, Bojack Horseman (S2, E10)
Moreover, if you’ve churned out multiple ideas in a matter of minutes, it’s likely that someone else has done it too, which in turn reduces the value of your ideas.
The most creative and hard-hitting ideas arise when you’re drained and you think you’re out of ideas. That is when you go beyond the obvious and the ordinary.
7. Communication
If you are doing great work but you’re unable to share it well with others, it all goes to waste. Design relies a lot on collaboration; you have to work well with multiple team members, and also pitch your ideas effectively to your clients (in my case, my professors!).
One thing that I’ve learnt the hard way is that the manner in which you present your work is equally important to the actual content. Your presentation shows more than just your work. It shows your aesthetic sense, your attention to detail, your ability to engage a user, your empathy, your UX skills, and so on, all of which eventually add or subtract to your actual work. The moment you enter the room, the judgement starts. It takes heaps of practice to do this well. I’ve made presentations every week for three years now and I still have a long way to go.
But confidence really helps and one way to build that is to explore new things, to go outside your comfort zone, and even doing weird things! The more you’re at a loss, the more you’ll eventually gain.
8. Look for clues around you
You don’t have to go far, people are up to all kinds of fascinating things around you! Look deeper, read between the lines and maybe you’ll find an avenue for a design intervention.
Many of these lessons, maybe even all of them might be fairly obvious to you, and it’s great if it is! Design is something so general that most of these philosophies are in some way deeply ingrained in us. A formal education only puts the habit in you through practice.
I never realised that I was learning any of these lessons; I simply finished my assignments, hoping for a good grade. If you’re a student at IDC, you might underestimate these seemingly unimportant, passive teachings because that’s how I myself felt in the beginning. Most of the assignments in my initial years were hardly relevant to the real world, but they’re starting to make sense especially now that I’m looking to work professionally. I still have another year to go. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes, and I hope it warrants an addition to this list!
If you have any comments or suggestions, please reach out to me. I’d be happy to have a discussion!
