“Product Design is a form of art.” “Oh Really?”

“Product Design is a form of art.” This was how I started to describe product design to one of my friends. “Pufff. Are you kidding me. Don’t get full of your self bro. You work at a tech company”. What he said was true. I do work in a tech company. After admitting that I should have given up on the thought of product designing being a form of art. Still something bothered me. Since I felt so strongly about product designing being a form of art, I started to think about convincing my friend.
Then a story my dad used to say to me about a painter rushed into my mind.
“Hey man, How are you?”
“ What are you up to. Haven’t seen you in a while”
Man with a tall complexion walked in to the room. The room was a bit gloomy. Used paint brushes everywhere with puddles of paint lying on the floor. In the middle of the room sitting on a stool staring at an empty canvas was the painter. For the sake of this story let’s call him Alex. He turn around and grinned to the man who just walked in. This was the first time the tall man went to see Alex after couple of weeks. He was shocked to see the tiresome face of Alex . Marks of sleepless nights were evident under Alex’s eyes.
“Wow. Alex you look like a real mess”

“I know.” Alex replied with a low voice.

“What happened to you?” The tall guy asked with astonishment.

“I have been staring at this empty canvas for 4 days straight. I need to finish this painting by the end of this month but my head is empty”. Alex replied and let out a deep breath trying to catch a relief from his torture and trying to start a conversation with his friend.

“You know what? I have the perfect idea. Come with me.” tall guy said with a smile covering his face.

“Oh right. I need some fresh air too” Alex agreed and they entered the ally way outside the gloomy studio.
It took about an hour of walk to get to the destination where the tall guy was taking Alex to. The view was amazing. It was almost 10 in the morning but the mist was still covering the mountain tops. This was the city border. Beyond that there was a mountain range. Alex has been here for many times. He knew this was beautiful but this was not what he was looking for. Alex was a bit angry he didn’t came all this way to look at the same old mountain range and leave.
“Oh come on man. I have been here at least 50 times. This is beautiful but there is nothing which would inspire me to create a master piece. What do you see in this place which make you think that I could create a master piece? ” Alex said to his friend with an annoyed tone.

“I’m not sure about the master piece but what attracts me to this is not the beauty of the mountain range but the herd of goats and the young shepherd who comes to the mountain range every day. I like to see the goats moving here and there in the grass plains and the young shepherd who rest under that huge tree until the time comes to bring them back home” replied the tall man.

This reply made Alex gasp. He has always looked at the mountain range. Not at the herd of goats running around. He was so busy looking at the big picture, he missed to see the ounce of beauty which made the ordinary view to amazing. Which would have inspired him to create the perfect piece of painting he has ever done.

I will stop the story to get back and explain where product design comes in to play. As Alex did we as product designers or as people who wants to create the next big product or to solve a problem, try to come up with products where we end up looking at the empty canvas for days. If Alex looked at the mountain range from the tall guy’s perspective, he wouldn’t have suffered that long to figure out what he needed to see to create his master piece. As product designers what we are trying to do is, before we get stuck staring at the canvas we try to figure out what makes others tick, what do they really see,what do they really want and what make their problem unique. By understanding the people whom we are designing for will make sure that we create the product they need.

Now how come Product Designing is a form of art?. Thia was the answer I gave back to my friend after telling the story

“As the painter in the story we , as product designers search for inspirations, build empathy towards our customer to see the view from his eyes and come up with the best possible solution which is our master piece.”

After listing to this conversation my mentor in the company that I work for, joined in and he said,

“my belief is that Product Design is a form of art that actually works or art that works is design”
“If you design something it should add value to someone. where as if you take a piece of art, it is a visual communication method and what you are communicating can add value to someone or not.”

Well thinking about this a little bit I understood that this statement was the perfect description of what Product Design truly means. Product design is the art that works and we are the artists who create art that works.