Khairudin Lee // Creative Hub

A Design Misconception

Saturday November 6, 2004

I had a long discussion with my lecturer a couple days ago and it opened up my eyes and made me realise how the word design and designer is a common overrated, overused, overkill and most of the time, a misconception word and term today. Ask almost anyone and you’ll roughly get the same answers and responses. Even dictionaries doesn’t give you the exact meaning and term to those words. The popular notion amongst lay-persons of what those words mean, is simply, to create or someone that creates. Which isn’t completely wrong but it is also just half of the meaning.

Modern technology have made it easier and allowed the lay-person to pick up and learn “design” on their own, though sometimes the fact is, that itself isn’t enough. For instance, by reading an online tutorial or a book, anyone and everyone can “design” a website. Well yes, if that’s so, what happens to the ability to question and the understanding of the practice? Where does that leave the real professional web designers? Are they now redundant and are of no use? Is there a need to engage and hire a professional to design a website when a your kid neighbour can create it for free?

Ever heard the term and saying Design is Everywhere? If you haven’t, that’s true and now you have. In fact, design is all around us everyday. Every person you see and encounter is a designer without you or him consciously realising it actually – A teacher planning a suitable timetable for the class, a writer who sits for hours trying to come up with an engaging plot to captivate his reader, a director figuring out a perfect angle and lighting during shooting to make it look stunning onscreen, a student devising and figuring a way on how he can skip the next class and lesson, just to name a few.

So what do all those above have in common? Their intentions and thoughts are different, but each is thinking for a purpose – That itself is the other missing half to the meaning. Designing is no longer about creating something different. In fact, it has never been solely about that. Designing is about the detailed research and understanding of the situation, process of brainstorming and conceptualisation of ideas, and coming up with that particular solution to the problem you’re facing. What you create later then is simply the execution of all your previous collective application of thoughts.

So back to the initial question, since everyone today can “design”, where does that leave the real designers? Is there any real difference? A clear line needs to be drawn to eradicate this common misconception. To answer it, yes, there is. A good design shows, in all different aspects and levels, not only in aesthetics but practicality, functionality and purpose. Therefore the designer have managed to effectively applied and successfully executed his creative thoughts into the final output. In conclusion, design is not soley the creative thinking or execution, but it is how effectively you tackle both.

disclaimer:
I’ve made a point to myself to not post boring rants about my daily routines and events, I find it highly redundant and pointless, at least to me. To slightly contradict myself however, I might, occasionally. Writing have never been my forte but I shall try to write well and post issues that interests me. Issues which I can relate to and that will stimulate and set my mind (and hopefully yours) thinking, or at least I try to. For some, it might bore the hell out of you but you are in no obligation whatsoever to read, agree or comply with my writing/nonsense. After all, this is a personal journal and reflection of, none other, than yours truly.

// Filed under: Art-Design

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