Title: Can Anybody Be a Designer?
Context: They call us designers, which is why we get paid the big bucks.* But can anyone really do what we do?
Synopsis: “Oh, you’re a designer? So you like draw stuff, right?” Most people don’t have the faintest clue what a designer does for a living. We are mysterious and mystical. Alchemists concocting objects of desire in subterranean laboratories with piercing insight into the deepest desires of a purchasing public who can’t wait to throw money at us once we have sated their unspoken craving for our beautiful output. Or we are just the people who make ordinary stuff look good. Either way, what we do is indefinable to most which begs the question: if it is so hard to delineate what we do, then isn’t it possible that there are lots of people doing it without even knowing it. Design is a big tent and sometimes people walk inside unaware that the things they are doing can – and should – be classified as “design”. This is not to say that all unconscious (or indeed conscious) attempts at design are “good design” of course, but it is fair to say that design is a form of invention where anyone can participate, and sometimes even succeed in spite of themselves.
Best Bit: “Is there anything to be gained by redefining things that have long been described, seemingly successfully, as scientific, political, technological or just plain resourceful as design? And could anything be lost by doing so?”
*Actually small to medium sized bucks.
via nytimes.com
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