Are designers the enemy of design? at The Open Logo Project 1.6

Very provocative article from Bruce Nussbaum of Business Week:

“In the name of provocation, let me start by saying that DESIGNERS SUCK. I’m sorry. It’s true. DESIGNERS SUCK. There’s a big backlash against design going on today and it’s because designers suck.

So let me tell you why. Designers suck because they are arrogant. The blogs and websites are full of designers shouting how awful it is that now, thanks to Macs, Web 2.0, even YouTube, EVERYONE is a designer. Core 77 recently ran an article on this backlash and so did we on our Innovation & Design site. Designers are saying that Design is everywhere, done by everyone. So Design is debased, eroded, insulted. The subtext, of course, is that Real design can only be done by great star designers.

This is simply not true. ” Read it all here (warning, long alert)

What do you think? Is the quality gap between amateur and real designers shrinking through the advancements of design tools we all have access to today? Has new media just made it easier for us to get an audience, without increasing the quality of the performance?

1 Response to “Are designers the enemy of design?”

1 by credonaut | Aug 28th, 2007 at 10:56 am

It’s the old question again: What is “real design”? Let me try …

Design is not art. Design is not craftsmanship. Design is not a concept.

Design is not art, because it’s message is intended and it has a clear and simple goal: Design wants the user to accept it. If you have a chair that looks cool but is unfit for sitting in it, then you (maybe) have an object of art (resembling a chair), but you definitely don’t have a well designed chair. Art lives for itself, design lives for the user.

Design is not craftsmanship. Let’s stay with our chair example for a little longer. Why not pick a log or a boulder and just sit on it? You’d say: Well, it is not as, uhm, nice, as a chair. The wish to create something useful AND beautiful burns in us since adam and eve picked their first fig leaves (hint hint - http://olp.spreadshirt.net/entries/2007/08/27/cover-yourself/). Or, as the Shakers put it: “Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.”

Design is not a concept. Design lives in the real world. You can talk about chairs and concepts of chairs, but that won’t keep your legs from tiring and your bones from wishing they could sink into some nice, warm and soft cushions.

I am (finally) about to come to my point. Because of all that, the process of designing is not longer restricted to a small and mundane group of people with art class certificates in their CVs — actually, it never has been. Everyone not only can be a designer, but is a designer already. What we have to decide now is not, if it’s Real Design (art classy stuff), but rather if it is working.

So I guess, as soon as you from OLP 1.6 find the logo of your dreams (dreams you probably never dreamt of, haha), it’s not a question of how many courses the designer has taken. The question of design is as simple as that:

Does it work? Yes = good design | No = Do it again.

1 by credonaut | Aug 28th, 2007 at 10:56 am

It’s the old question again: What is “real design”? Let me try …

Design is not art. Design is not craftsmanship. Design is not a concept.

Design is not art, because it’s message is intended and it has a clear and simple goal: Design wants the user to accept it. If you have a chair that looks cool but is unfit for sitting in it, then you (maybe) have an object of art (resembling a chair), but you definitely don’t have a well designed chair. Art lives for itself, design lives for the user.

Design is not craftsmanship. Let’s stay with our chair example for a little longer. Why not pick a log or a boulder and just sit on it? You’d say: Well, it is not as, uhm, nice, as a chair. The wish to create something useful AND beautiful burns in us since adam and eve picked their first fig leaves (hint hint - http://olp.spreadshirt.net/entries/2007/08/27/cover-yourself/). Or, as the Shakers put it: “Don’t make something unless it is both necessary and useful; but if it is both necessary and useful, don’t hesitate to make it beautiful.”

Design is not a concept. Design lives in the real world. You can talk about chairs and concepts of chairs, but that won’t keep your legs from tiring and your bones from wishing they could sink into some nice, warm and soft cushions.

I am (finally) about to come to my point. Because of all that, the process of designing is not longer restricted to a small and mundane group of people with art class certificates in their CVs — actually, it never has been. Everyone not only can be a designer, but is a designer already. What we have to decide now is not, if it’s Real Design (art classy stuff), but rather if it is working.

So I guess, as soon as you from OLP 1.6 find the logo of your dreams (dreams you probably never dreamt of, haha), it’s not a question of how many courses the designer has taken. The question of design is as simple as that:

Does it work? Yes = good design | No = Do it again.