114 - What Happened To Design?

What this episode covers

What happened to design? When did it get overtaken by the researchers and the bean-counters? Music and links from this episode Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik allegro by Advent Chamber Orchestra Quasi Motion by Kevin MacLeod Walk That Dog by U.S. Army Blues ACOUSTIC BLUES by Jason Shaw Line-by-line notes When graphic design first became a profession, things were simpler Classic design used to be much simpler to understand Dieter Rams 10 principles for good design are just as relevant today as they were in the 1970s He said Good design is innovative Good design makes a product useful Good design is aesthetic Good design makes a product understable Good design is unobtrusive Good design is honest Good design is long lasting Good design is thorough to the last detail Good design is environmental friendly Good design is as little design as possible Why do I feel like—in the pursuit of more and better design—we've forgotten quite a few of these? Where did it all go wrong? This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess PLAY MID SONG I'm going to get a little bit controversial in this episode And try and get you to think outside your comfort zone Especially if you're a jobbing designer right now Controversy point one: Designers aren't trusted to do their own jobs anymore And designers are becoming less respected at their craft Before a designer gets involved, often there's lots of research Or testing Or focus groups Or marketing people writing lengthy documents Then making design suggestions before the designer has even started It seems There needs to be a focus group or a large scale research project to back up your design choices for almost anything these days And if a designer isn't sure They'll be asked to test two versions of a design to see which performs best All this stuff erodes the soul of a design Design isn't as simple as that Simply doing the research doesn't automatically create a good design And the research can be, you know, wrong Design needs to be left to the designers Design is as much of a science as it is an art Getting it right isn't as simple as doing the research and saying 'so and so looks like this so we need to look like this' Design is so much more subtle than that In the hands of a good designer, a good marketing strategy can turn into something amazing But in the hands of a poor designer, a good marketing strategy amounts to nothing And there's also the other side of this The side that designers often don't get a say in BAD marketing strategies The research or the strategy is never said to be wrong, it's always the designers fault Strategy and planning can sometimes directly interfere with the end design product Many people are trying to make design a science And design to some extent can be quantified There's rules of design that when followed can produce passable work But this is why I said design is as much of a science as it is an art The science part gets you to a certain point with a design It makes it usable, presentable, workable, and consumable by the masses But the art part, that's why the magic lies That's where something turns from a good design into something amazing Something timeless And something people talk about for years and even decades To finish this rant up, I'm going to let you in on a little secret Sometimes when I'm working on a piece of design The first idea I come up with In the first 20 minutes Is the best idea I'll have And sometimes, that idea is the perfect one Sometimes I can create an entire new brand in 20 minutes And I shouldn't be embarrassed by that That's just design It can't be quantified or put into a neat box Sometimes it works in mysterious ways And you just have to ride out the journey OUTRO This was AADA. I’m Craig Burgess. Music featured in this episode was Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik allegro by Advent Chamber Orchestra Quasi Motion by Kevin MacLeod Walk That Dog by U.S. Army...