What is Design

Design uses an emotion, creativity to successfully communicate an idea using life’s experiences as a major influence and inspiration. It also involves the execution of creative thinking and ideas using life experiences and associations. Design is about communicating effectively. It is about understanding by using visuals.

The design process is like driving a car, and starting the car is the first step. This is the visual I see when I am asked to think about design and its processes. Application, knowledge, judgment, understanding, skills (and materials), are the main tools in design, likewise the main brain tools of driving. So much like learning to drive, is the process used and followed in design.

I would say one’s life experiences are the ignition, the driving force and influence to a design. First gear being one’s senses is a key factor in the design process, in collaboration with re-invention getting the creative ideas flowing. First gear could also be the first step in the design process being great work. This refers to re-invention, looking at existing designs and distinguishing and defining good and bad design.

A vehicle has five gears much like design has five processes. Reason being the second process of design I would consider the second gear. This step involves asking questions and answers being established. Precedent being the next is conducting research of relevant designs and defining what makes them good and bad. Not knowing, the fourth gear is the visual execution, which involves experimenting through creative thinking, life experiences, fresh ideas, influences and inspiration. Craft is the fifth gear. This is where the visual idea is created and completed with the aid of all the previous processes.

Designer’s drawings must communicate something, whereas an artist draws to provoke an idea. Designers have to communicate through creative thinking, being a skill, value and tool. Creativity is considered an emotion because passion comes from it. We use creativity to design, and designing is a passion and that’s how it becomes an emotion. Design is also about expressing yourself, it’s about development and being progressive by using, energy, technology and freedom to being a better, different and more creative designer.

As a second year graphic designer, design is about improvement and applying what I was taught and made to understand in first year. It is about broadening my knowledge to infinity and beyond and exploring challenges and capturing the essence and inspiration of the environment that surrounds me.

Design is about re-invention by being resourceful along with media through thinking, brainstorming and experimenting. Creating a vision is about association, interpretation, knowledge and inspiration. Creativity can be defined but not measured through its unique quality and style (being inside or out of “the box”). 

Being a designer requires one to be responsible, and responsibility is a burden but it is up to you to make it work. Applying knowledge, judgment, understanding, skills and experience is what makes a licensed driver, and in the same way it makes a successful designer.