DESIGN ISN’T ART. THERE, I SAID IT.
I graduated with a Design & Electronic Arts BFA (and a Sociology minor, accidentally) from a university that heavily emphasizes on Fine Arts. Most of my artsy college friends are now either incredible fine artists, professors in arts, or amazing craftspeople. Interacting with them on a daily basis for years helped me understand something that most designers might have a problem acknowledging: Design is not Art. Design is a Science. Art is an Experience.
Can design be expressive? Absolutely. Look at my website. But design, to me, is a science that solves an experiential problem, while art is an expression that creates the experience. Design is meticulously spending days looking at a button, is reading through research papers to understand how certain typefaces create an emotion, or is looking up manuals online to solve a printing problem from a factory printer that’s 100 years old. It’s engineering with an Art degree.
It might not work all the time, but that’s what I bring to the table.
SO WHAT IS HUMANISTIC ADVERTISING? WHAT IS ETHICAL DESIGN?
I, unfortunately, am not a genius – I’m sure other designers before and after me have thought of this before. But this occurred to me one day in a client meeting: the more it went on, the more I was positive the client was asking us to hide certain buttons or links, so users would have had a hard time clicking out. At some point, design stopped becoming enhancing the experience or solving a problem, and became a tool of marketing manipulation.
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make a change
The humanism starts on the white board. If I have to resort to these tactics, it means our campaigns are not good enough, our design has not reached the audience it needs to reach, or our client’s product just isn’t good enough.
“SO WHAT HAVE YOU DONE FOR THE WORLD?”
If you want a fast and definitive answer – then nothing.
It is a process. It is educating the younger designers under my wing to practice integrity. It is collaborating with coworkers to make sure we present the best pitch possible so we don’t have to resort to these tactics. It is teaching my favorite food trucks to better utilize their tools at hand, so they don’t fall into these traps. It is gaining trust from the leadership so we all can thrive. It is showing up every day. The change comes from the inside, and I’m happy to say it’s going well. Some day.
