As many children, I was often asked what I wanted to become when I grew up. My answers varied on a wide range, from veterinarian, to school teacher, with many other options in between.
There were always pros and cons of every career I was able to imagine. So, at 9 years old I decided that the best choice was obviously to become an artist.
I tried graphite, acrylic, oil painting, and my absolute favorite: watercolors.
...
My talent left much to be desired.
As a 13 year old I discovered photography for myself, and after a long journey of taking and developing my own pictures in the midst of the transition from analog to digital photography, I found myself in a sea of different mediums of expression involving photography, creative writing, journalism, drawing, painting, and had I not had very bad performance anxiety (or a parent that would’ve pushed and encouraged me to overcome it), I would’ve probably also turned to dance and theater.
To make a long story short: art was so little inside of my veins that I tried way too desperately to fit it into my nature. It just felt forced and unnecessarily difficult.
I struggled for way too long to find a way to communicate all the things that the world needed to hear, until I finally found my true calling: design.
Please note that I will be talking primarily about (digital) product design, which shares some, but not all characteristics of, say, brand, or graphic design.
So, you might ask yourself… what is the difference between design and art anyway? And you’d be right, because the mainstream views on design are not that far off from what we think about art.
Design has so many categories and facets, that the lines between the disciplines become so blurry even designers themselves can get confused.
Art and Design: Two Sides of the Creative Coin
You might be wondering, what’s the difference between art and design? Given their similarities, it’s a valid question. Both fields involve creativity, but they serve distinct purposes.
Design is fundamentally about solving problems. It combines empathy, critical thinking, storytelling, and various other skills to create functional solutions. If you paid any attention to the previous paragraphs, you might understand how this all encompasses everything I had ever dreamed of.
Doesn’t sound very artistic, I know… that’s because design is supposed to be functional, and art is not. It’s supposed to be emotional. You are supposed to be absorbed in the artist’s nostalgia and the beauty of their sad looking muses, posing in semi-natural positions, frozen mid-movement, whilst re-thinking the meaning to life.
I’m sure we all can agree that there are a lot of self proclaimed artists in the world, and I am not here to judge whether or not they earned that title.
However, it seems important to note that only a small percentage makes it; and the majority of them are artists on the side, while they do something else for a living.
Doubts about that?
- DaVinci was an engineer and studied anatomy by dissecting human bodies (not sure where he got them from).
- Michelangelo was an architect and a poet.
- Kandinsky was a lawyer.
- Henri Rousseau a customs officer.
- And Paul Nash a soldier.
- Duchamp designed toilets in his spare time (not quite, but he did somehow… not sure anybody understands it)
The point is… rather than a profession, something you do for a living, art seems to be a way of expression, an outlet of sorts. It’s not supposed to do anything other than provide that decompression for the artist, and stir something up inside of you as the consumer; like emotions and moral principles. It’s not supposed to give you any functionality, or provide you with a service, or even allow you to earn an income. That’s what design is for.
I would argue that there are two major differences between art and design:
- Art is emotional, design is functional. We just covered that.
- Art is loud and memorable; whilst design aims to be subtle and forgettable. It’s the mission of a designer (A UX designer, anyway) to make experiences so seamless, they become second nature. Like getting home and not remembering how you got there, but without the danger of a distracted driver.
This is particularly true for User Experience design, which by definition, dictates the quality of the experience a user will have with a given product. So… art is not going to help much here. However, it takes creativity paired with problem solving skills, patience and a good eye to come up with ideas that will account for all the necessary components within a good design. It includes a solid and cohesive UI (User interface), which some might argue requires an artistic eye to be effective.
So... what makes a good designer then?
Regardless of how you want to define the different stages of the design process, it is clear that humans need both art and design. We just need to be aware that they serve different purposes.
So much so, that almost all designers I have ever met tell me they are terrible at drawing. And they are right, they are pretty bad.
So… what then makes a good designer, if not their artistic eye or their skillset with any artistic medium? Beyond of which skills get you hired… which ones are actually necessary to craft great designs? Of course, the current buzzwords are storytelling, problem solving, critical thinking and empathy, to name a few. But what do those words mean?
You’d be surprised by how many interconnected skills are actually necessary to create great solutions. Yes, all of the above are advantageous, but it is the synergy between them, that make your work product special. Being extremely empathetic doesn’t really solve anything, other than potentially getting overwhelmed by the ability to recognize and understand user problems. While this is a good start, without any analytical skills and strategy, the solution might leave a lot to be desired.
Remember Bruce Almighty? He had to learn that not all prayers can be listened to! It takes analytical thinking, critical thinking, and most importantly, the ability to create a system that works to understand the problem and strategize -not only a solution, but the best solution.
This is why it is so important to work as a team. Few designers have it all, and though you can develop all the necessary skills to be an efficient problem solving, storytelling, critical thinking, empathetic design machine… you’d still be missing the business skills, as well as all the other technical skills required to create fundamentally sound and successful products.
Some product examples where this seems to be working well
Of course we can’t really have insights into all companies. From the outside though, this synergy shows. Here’s my top 4 shortlist of companies / products (that I know of and use), where the balance between skillsets seems to really work like a well oiled engine:
Do you have one you’d add to the list? I’d love to know! Hit the reply button and shoot me a message. I’m looking forward to it.
See you in two weeks!
-Daniela
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