Design Thinking // Posted on June 22, 2010
The past month has been a time of reflection for me as I look back at my education and rationalize with my choices. It’s a coming to peace journey. One of my biggest regrets coming out of my undergraduate is that I didn’t do more (and a result as I review my student loans!). I still have a little bit of fight left in me. I wanted to walk across the stage at graduation completely exhausted and burnt out from the constant pursuit of perfection, or as close as I could come to “it.” I know now that I was completely misguided in my original assessment.
The regret is only temporary, down to the milliseconds. What I have gained is something far more important than my body of work: thinking like a designer, which I believe manifests itself in both my portfolio and my process to solving communication problems. I didn’t learn this skill in college directly, but through a series of decisions and exposures past what was required of me. During my sophomore year I branched out and began trying to find client work. I utterly failed at branding myself and it wasn’t until a year later that I began to have a constant flow of work. As my portfolio grew and I became happier and happier with my solutions, I still felt incomplete as if there was a potential in me that wasn’t being realized. I have always had a difficult time roping in graphic design and traditional arts, comparing and contrasting the two to oblivion. I wanted so bad to be an artist, but felt conflicted thinking I could call myself that as a graphic designer. The two seemed like different worlds. Its a normal trend for designers to feel like tools of a commercial world. In fact, many of my classmates have felt this way one time or another, or they will begin to feel it as they step out into the industry.
Reading, writing, and thinking about design were scarishly not present in my education. I’m curious if this is the norm in design schools as educators battle to educate the next generation of creative thinkers, especially of the visual kind. I began reading the works of Ellen Lupton and William Drenttel, curious to examine graphic design as a contemporary and autonomous form of academic discourse. What I came to find is a library of documents that trace the evolution of society in respects to design trends, similar to how art informs a present audience to the life and challenges of contemporaneous peoples as seen through the study of art in art history. I stepped back and began to look at a bigger picture. Its not what we create, what fonts we choose, or the palette. Its about the communication and how we as visual thinkers respond to the visual needs of the audience. What do our methods say about our audience? Can we predict their response? Is it our job to progress societal communication norms? Isn’t that commercial suicide?
Design thinking in my own terms and experiences is nothing more than a constant critical engagement with the world around me, as it pertains to the visual arts. It’s a competitive world out there. I’ve seen that in my job search. But one thing that nobody can copy of yours is your thoughts, opinions, and your courage to participate in the next wave of creatives who progress the visual literacy of the world. I’m not angry that this wasn’t explicitly taught to me, because the independent journey has lead me to a place where I am satisfied with my endeavors. Designers cannot brand their work, nor can they solely rely on their portfolio. But their thinking is what sets them apart.
Moral of the story: Thinking makes an artist. Tools, method, intent and content are only sub-particles that set out to define and separate the two. We need money to survive. An artist wants to sell their work. So what’s the big difference? Prestige, which gets you nowhere.
What set me on this journey? This article.