About
Philosophy
Communication, not decoration
Design means many different things, to many people. To me, design is about communication and about use. If something doesn't communicate it's message or is unusable, for whatever reason, then it can benefit from design.
Take something simple like my local supermarket. When you enter there is an automatic door which opens for you. So far, so good. The door opens to the right leaving the way into the first aisle easy for you. However, the shopping baskets are positioned behind the opened door to your right . This is a problem. 1. You have to think. 2. You have to solve a problem whilst you're trying to remember what you want to buy. 3. The door is in your way. Bad design. Bad user experience.
So, what am I getting at? Well, design is about the end user. It's the person who drives away the car, the person who reads the ad, the managing director who reads his companies annual review and, most importantly, it's me buying my shopping.
Design is in the details. It's all well and good designing a door that opens for you, but if the baskets are blocked by that open door then the design fails. Likewise if a person wants to buy something online and the shopping basket icon isn't a trolley (like they expect) but a small shopping bag (because the designer wanted to be creative) then the business could be lost.
Design to peoples expectations, needs and preconceptions.