Do you ever have difficulty explaining to others, let alone your mother, what exactly it is that you do for a living, or what design actually is?
It seems that when I try to explain design, I get hung up somewhere between explaining the process, and giving a laundry list of outcomes (e.g., brochure, logo, web site, etc.).
The conversation usually goes like this:
“What is it that you do?”
“I’m a designer.”
“So what is it that you do?”
“I design logos and brochures and…”
“So what exactly do you do?”
“I create ads and other printed communications.”
“Oh, so you use computers.”
“Yeah… something like that.”
This definition of design seems to have struck a chord with designers, software engineers, and others from around the world:
“Design consists of creating things for clients who may not know what they want, until they see what you’ve done, then they know exactly what they want, but it’s not what you did.”
As designers, we are constantly dealing with ambiguity, focusing and managing expectations, and leading toward an appropriate solution for the problem at hand.
And by the way, you have to do it on a deadline. No problem!