Being a designer I’ve learned that you can’t really stop your brain from processing things differently after the work day is done. No matter where you go or what you do we are all confronted with good and bad design decisions. Advertisements litter our life especially in this day and age with technology. The media has inserted itself everywhere. Soon we will be living in our modern day Futurama where they insert advertising into our dreams at night. For now it’s only really on our phones, television, internet, magazines, gaming systems, restaurants, movie theatres and public places… You can try but you can’t really ignore every single advertisement you see. With this much exposure companies are looking to designers to help create these advertisements to get the most out of their investment. Most days I end up subconsciously picking apart the ads I see and evaluating their effectiveness.
Logos are literally everywhere as well. Even if you’re out in the woods camping away from society, you probably brought some kind of gear with you, and there’s bound to be a logo on a few things.
Don’t forget all the printed materials that go along with every business, not to mention websites, apps, UI, products and packages you take off the shelf. There’s no doubt design is everywhere.
Design Will Always Be Needed
No matter where you go or what you do, you’re going to be looking at something a designer put together. Everything that is successful is visually appealing, and has been well thought out from a design standpoint. We don’t just make things ‘pretty’ we lay things out in specific ways for a reason. Gestalt* has to be thought of with everything; colour choices can effect reactions, and how the user will interact with your product needs to be thought of from the beginning. Everyone has and is entitled to their own opinion, but people need to stop looking at design from only an ‘art’ perspective and release designer position elements, from a functional aspect as well.
We Strategize. We Plan. We Design.
With the web, design is only half the battle. Websites need to function properly as well. Something can look great but if it doesn’t perform well or operates too slowly, than no one will use it. It’s the same the other way around as well. A website can function well and be super quick, but if it doesn’t look good visually or if the page structure doesn’t make any sense at all you could get easily confused and frustrated, causing you to leave the website quickly. It’s a team effort with the web and we have to make sure to have great communication with our developers when we design websites. If you are lucky enough to have developers as fellow employees you can learn very quickly what can and can’t be done, as well as learning more efficient workarounds. Remember to leave detailed notes explaining how you intend elements to work.
Remember: Design is everywhere, it goes much deeper than just visuals, and trust your designer, they do it for a living.
* Gestalt: an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts.
