March 6th, 2007
One Principle to Design By
I’ve just been pointed to a post by Andy , called Five Principles to Design By by Joshua Porter. It’s a very good post, but point 2 has set some alarm bells off in my head once again.
Design is not art. That old chestnut.
This keeps coming up recently. Why? I’ve no idea but it’s beginning to bug me. Here’s my take on it all.
Design is not art.
That is, design is not art if you define the simple motivations. An artist is self-motivated, a designer is motivated by a client. True, artists could be commissioned etc, but I don’t want to quibble about semantics here. You get my drift.
How do I define design? Design solves a problem.
Now, that problem could be communicating a message, telling a brand story or inventing a new type of dishwasher; it doesn’t matter. So, that is my One Principle to Design By. Solve the problem
Ah, but.
That’s not the whole story.
The grey area of Art and Design is the practice of the craft of design. It’s the difference between a design being usable and a design being usable and special.
Take the Dyson vacuum for example. This vacuum works slightly differently than the others. It still does the same job, but has been designed to differenciate itself from its competitors. The designers solved the same problem in a different way. Ok, all good. Now we get down to how the thing looks. There is love in this product. There is craft in this product.
Of course, no discussion on this would be complete without mentioning Apple. Apple make beautiful products. But they didn’t always do that, and they nearly went bust because of it. For a long time, Apple made pretty good computers. In 1998, they made the first iMac. The distinguishing features of this new machine were crafted and mostly aesthetic. They are examples of beautiful product design. As a result, they sold a bomb and the rest is history.
Those are product design, but the same applies to graphic design. I’d argue that a well crafted, beautiful piece of design that solves the problem, will always do it better than one that just solves the problem. There is an important place within design for beauty and craft and it bothers me that experienced designers* in this medium don’t recognise this and are blindly advocating successful design as a practice without craft. It’s not the case.
Ok. Rant over.
* I’m not having a dig at Joshua here, or anybody in particular, it’s just a vibe I’ve been getting for the past year.
Myspace, del.icio.us, craigslist… is that you’re vibe?
My Zanussi washing machine seems to do a very good job at washing clothes, but the controls are neither design, craft, or nice. It winds me up, but the wife just goes mad at it.
What do Mr Jobs and Mr Dyson have in common? They’re potty about their products and would’nt be happy doing anything else.
Amen, brother. Looking out on the landscape of the modern web, there’s plenty of supposed design, but very little good design and even less artwork being created. When I think back 6–7 years ago, it was almost the opposite. Lots of great experimental digital artwork but not much design, let alone well-executed, smart design.
Yeah: if you want to inspire an emotional reaction, you’re gonna need art in your design.
I agree with you and I don’t actually think Joshua is that far off the same page. Most of the “misunderstanding” in this “issue” relates to the semantic problems here.
What is design? What is art? What is self-expression? What is craft?
There is lots of room for individual interpretation in those terms. If the problems are being solved by design. Good. If they’re being solved with a dash of beauty and love. Even better.
Anyway here’s a bit more on my take, just to confuse the issue even more.
Amen to that Brother.
This is precisely the reason why I decided to dive into the design field (while throwing away the IT degree I acquired).
You are the 2nd note-worthy designers I’ve met who really understand the meaning behind “design”. 1st being Ian Anderson (the designers republic), who changed my life once I heard those words uttered from his mouth.
“Design solves problems!”
Those words enlightened me to a whole new revelation of how I could’ve been waiting for this to pop up right in front of me and stare right at me saying “This is YOU!”
Haha! Enough of my ‘rants’.
p.s. You Rock! Kudos to you!
My gig is writing, and you get people setting up the same kind of artificial divides there. Nonfiction writing involves just as much “art” as fiction does, but many people don’t see it that way. I once cornered the fiction writer Susan Minot, who had written a novel called “Monkeys” about a large (7 kids) New England family, and asked her whether she had come from a family like the one she had written about. “Yes, in fact I had six siblings,” she said, “and yes the novel is autobiographical. But it’s not like there were sentences floating around that I just had to pluck out of the air and put down on paper.” In other words, she had to tell the story. And telling the story involves art and craft no matter whether it’s truth or fiction, or even if you’re writing a technical manual for a piece of software.
I think Don Norman’s approach in “Emotional Design” has helped me reconcile the conflict between design and pure aesthetics. One of his more interesting assertions is that things that look and feel better, work better. He identifies three models of cognitive responses to a product: visceral, behavioral, and reflective. Beauty and craft of a product are important aspects that address the visceral and reflective components.
So when you are addressing the sheer aesthetic and emotional response people will elicit in their interaction with a product, you are still solving a fundamental design problem.
Nice extension to my piece, Mark. I’m not sure we’re in disagreement…or maybe we’re in disagreement about the shades of gray.
The reason why I use “design is not art” as a principle is because design is never about the designer (me). It’s not about me or my needs (unless I’m a user, too). So I agree completely with you that design is about solving a problem.
Art, on the other hand, *is* about me. When I make art, it is an act of self-expression. It’s not about solving a problem, it’s about me and whatever I feel like at the time.
Your use of the term “craft” is interesting, and I certainly didn’t mean to equate that with art, or unequate it with design. I think that passion and craft can be a great force in design, but only to the extent that they solve the problem, not as a self-expression of the designer.
The real story is subtle. I like what the Shakers say:
Joshua Porter: I think I’m mostly in agreement with you. But to not mention beauty, or design on an aesthetic level was somewhat misleading.
Thinking about it more, I would say that self-expression is a strong force within design practice. Maybe the motivating factor is who I’m trying to please with the design. Is it for me? Or the client? Or am I the client?
Lots of shades of grey there.
Love the Shaker quote though, I’m going to remember that.
Very grey topic. Honestly though, if it was just you designing for the client, and not for the satisfaction of yourself, would you still be designing? I’m under the impression that designers are designers because they have the love and passion to do what they do. That passion is an art onto itself. Without it, you wouldn’t be designing; it would be just like any other job.
Interesting article. As an architect gone web designer, I can appreciate the design vs. art problem. Lately I’m leaning towards art being the problem. Or rather the romantic concept of art. Before the Romantic era (1700–1900?), art was just craft done well, art was done by artisans, end of. With the romantics, the notion of the self contained artistic genius came about and the question “is this art?”.
I much prefer the older meaning — art as a craft done well. Which means that design is art. That an object somehow magically gets transformed into ‘Art’ by quite inexplicable criteria is at best unhelpful.
I think your worrying too much Mark :)
I think you’re right Mike. As it turns out I have developed a cold today which might go some way to explain my rather grumpy and reflective mood yesterday. :)
I’m not fancy enough to have an opinion about whether or not design is art. But, one of the caveats cited in the original article as far as what art is, “Art is about personal expression.” seemed to imply that design isn’t about personal expression.
Maybe that’s the case when you’re designing for corporation X but when I’m designing for me it very much is about personal expression.
So, does that make me a lousy designer or a lousy artist?
I think the interesting distinction between the articles is the addition of craft.
It almost seems that the thought behind “design is not art” assumes that a designer doesn’t use a sense of artistry when designing. I think that’s what sets the best design apart from the majority of items we’ve all seen lately.
The designers who practice design with a sense of art, who put love into their work, are the one’s I’d call craftsman. But I know plenty of designers who see design simply as work, with no love for it.
I think we’d all agree the design with love in it, with a sense of artistry done by a craftsman, is the design that is great.
same here Mark—rough as — - must be the dodgy cardiff weather.
When I read Joshua’s article, I understood the distinction as one of intention rather than outcome. Design can, and one hopes will, result in art, but it begins with a different intention: to solve a problem, and the aesthetic expression of an idea is not the sole criterion used to make design decisions — other criteria are equally important e.g. fitness for purpose, safety requirements, patent issues, legibility of type for vision-impaired users and on and on.
Deffo the weather mate — I’m ridden with apathy today and I can’t explain it!
Joshua wrote: “Art, on the other hand, *is* about me. When I make art, it is an act of self-expression. It’s not about solving a problem, it’s about me and whatever I feel like at the time.”
Well, that’s a pretty limited view of Art, and one that’s wholly unsupported by actual history. For much of its history, Art was not in any sense about “self expression” or this awful notion of “whatever I feel like at the time.” That’s something that art school first-years need to get beaten out of them and but quick. It might be fun to splash some paint around and feel happy, but that is certainly not Art.
For example, much of the work of Leonardo, Raphael, or other Renaissance artists was not about self-expression, it was commissioned work requiring them to communicate specific themes–often religious or historical–to specific audiences. They made use of visual tools, and occassionaly invented some, in order to carry that job out. They developed styles that allowed them to succeed in a marketplace. They got paid by clients.
It wasn’t really until the mid-19th century that “self-expression” really was a function of art at all, and there’s actually a reasonable case to be made that “self-expressiveness” was itself a response to market conditions that demanded new visual styles. The market’s demand for art objects has only increased in the last 100 years. Go to any big biennial show and look at how stylistic differentiation–“making whatever you feel”–is a solution to visual formal problems and often a marketplace problem: how do I produce work of integrity which also can somehow support me to keep doing more work? And if you think that crass market calculations are not artistic concerns, well, I point you to Andy Warhol and about a hundred others all the way up through Jeff Koons (and about a zillion art students along the way). Hardly any decent artist sits around waiting for some feeling to strike her and compel her to pick up a brush or chisel. Most of them have working processes we’d probably call “prototyping.” Again, it’s all “problem solving” of some sort.
This isn’t to say that art is not about self-expression, but it’s not only about it. Designers should get to know some artists personally, you’d find that you have a lot more in common than you think.
Unless you’re a web designer purposefully setting out to admire others’ work, you’re not visiting a web site because it’s beautifully designed, but because it provides information you need or helps you solve a problem.
But, I still think that putting thought and attention and love into the design improves the user’s experience. A well-designed site is more pleasant (and sometimes easier) to use, so I think design is important.
Probably, “balance” is the most important work in a discussion about art and design. Even if in most of cases “less is more”, my general will is to give to my works individuality by creativity.
My university degree was (is) called ‘Design Communications’. Good design is all about communicating (or functioning) well.
As a follow-up to my post about Art above, I ran across this excellent piece called ‘Aesthetics and Usability: What can Interaction Designers learn from Painting’ that looks at how painters are primarily visual problem solvers.
Way to go Andrew! My thoughts exactly, its hard to sit here and listen to these discussions from people who obviously have no experience outside of design. Art is the same think people but on a much broader scale. design is for a particular client while art is for the masses (for a great majority of the time) each of them try to solve problems and express ideas. I the idea that Art is solely produced for the artist by the artist is extremely naive and completely misses it’s point as a cultural tool to help us understand who we are.
Andrew and Michael are on point. It’s impossible to segregate design and art because they are inherently related. Trying to explain how design is not art would be like trying to explain why jazz is not music. The motivations, and processes that go into design and art are so conceptually similar that in my opinion it seems silly to discuss them as individuals.
And I don’t mean to poke holes in simple examples because I understand that the broader concepts that are the main focus of the discussion here, but has anyone else seen the Dyson vacuums and Apple computers on display in the Museum of Modern Art in New York? I believe they’re a few floors above the work of Van Gogh, de Kooning, and Jasper Johns. But they’re still under the same roof.