Designers Are Like Artists

A design is basically a blueprint or design for the construction or production of an entity or system, or in the case of a process or product, the end result of that blueprint or design in the form of a finished object, machine or process. The word ‘design’ itself implies both a creative and technical act, as in ‘to redesign an existing design’, and therefore ‘to design’ includes not only the production of new designs, but also the constructive modification of designs already produced. The word ‘design’ comes from the Greek word’Designs” which means ‘Original Design’. The verb ‘design’ also originates from the same Greek root, and denotes either the process or the production of something new – as in ‘to devise means to devise something new’.

Designing is an inherently creative act. It involves the application of our creative faculties to models, drawings and sometimes real objects. We adopt this creativity step by step as we pursue the objective of good design process. We begin with a sketch or a drawing, using our creative faculties to imagine how the object would look like, and then make changes to the sketch according to our knowledge and understanding of how things work. We build up from there until the final design is complete. At the end we have a well designed object, but we have also developed the creativity within ourselves to make that object reflect our true sense of beauty and design.

Designers must continually challenge themselves to come up with new ideas and take their experience of the world of colors and textures and of other human experiences and combine it with their knowledge of design processes and their own intuition to produce innovative products and beautiful works of art. In a very real sense, designers are always doing the work of artists. The difference lies in their ability to simplify the production process and make their creative works more affordable and accessible to more people. Their ability to use their imagination will often lead them to new ways of collaborating and interacting with others to improve the quality of their product, services or creative endeavors.