Artist Statement
Design is a commodity, it is something that has value, but certain demographics or markets value design more than others. While the intention of getting everyone in every location to value design is an extremely lofty and likely unattainable goal, I want my clients—and my students—to see the value in design. I want them to see the good that design can bring to the world. I want my students to design for, and my clients to see the benefit of, design for a purpose.
I am not out to save the world, but I want my design to matter. I want it to count for something, and I want to encourage others, at a minimum, to see the reasons for my doing so. Design is a process, not just a deliverable, and want to help educate others to see this point of view—to see the value of a designed solution.
Lately I have started to get the sense that, for some, the value of design is not what it should be, and that form trumps function. I am not sure what has caused this apparent shift, if it is the easily attained software that in some ways makes a everyone a ‘designer’, the rise of social media and self-promotion through the internet, the increase in self-publishing through blogs, or perhaps even the cross-pollination between art and design. I believe that form should and will naturally arise out of content, but this growth does not often get the opportunity to happen because there is so much visual clutter, and too often there isn’t enough emphasis placed on understanding a problem.
A clear understanding of the goal and the content needs to occur before focusing too much on form. I believe that it is too easy for a client to think that they need a certain deliverable, when in fact something different is actually more appropriate for what they are trying to accomplish. While selling this fact to the client may prove challenging, I feel that it comes back to valuing design and what we do as designers. We are not necessarily thing-makers, as is sometimes the perception, rather the things we make come out of the understanding of the content and problem. Design has a lot to offer.
As designer Debbie Millman states, “We can talk about making a difference, we can make a difference, or we can do both.” I aim to do both and help others see the value in design.