Are a you a Designer or a designer?
The importance of amateurity in such elitist profession
If Design was once a very timid science, when companies still did not understand what it is and why it is so important — today, everybody is [or believe is] “doing design”. Cake design, nail design, hair design, body design… How many design professionals seems to have no idea what Design is, but insist to use the word design in their titles [1]? Should they be allowed to do that? Is Design something everyone could do, or do you really have to achieve formal education in Design to be named as a designer?
An etymological issue?
Well, first of all, you need to understand something very important about Design: since the very beginning there is no clear definition about what Design really is. There is an old discussion inside the academy to figure out what Design can really do and how far it can go? Also, there is lot of confusion about what the word design really means. Back in time in Europe, when the first artisans started to understand their work would not be enough to guarantee the production for already overpopulated cities, they understood they had to create new processes [2]. By that time, engineering was already something, usually attained to war, basic sanitation and architecture. Engineering became an applied discipline for building things. But design, it was a direct evolution from handcrafting [3]. Until now, every designer do a lot manual work, trying things and experimenting with models.
But they needed a word to define those shifts they were looking for in their professions. So, Design, even nowadays, is often confused with drawing, but even if you have to draw a lot of stuff, it clearly does not resume what Design was and what it became. In spanish, Design is called “diseño” while drawing is translated as “dibujo”. However, even if the same can be said about portuguese (design is design, drawing is “desenho”), it does not apply to italian, when design is called design (an international word, huh?), and drawing is “disegno” [2].
This has created a lot of false cognates around the word, and maybe it influenced laymen when assimilating Design’s real potential [4]. Such unclear translations mixed not only the shape, but also the meaning of the word design. Specially because, while architure and engineering were too complex do learn and to adopt, creating a special aura of inaccessibility; design was a common word turned particular — at least, they tried to. So, who gave us the authority to claim a common verb (to design) into a private word? Furthermore, in many countries, Design is a not even a regular profession, which means there is not a formal regulation institution behind it, even existing formal higher education in Design.
Popular design vs academic Design?
In general terms, design means, according to Cambridge’s Dictionary [5], “to make or draw plans for something, for example clothes or buildings”. This is a very broaden definition, but it also suits Design very well, given the complex new markets it has entered in last decades. But here is a very tricky point: if such word is used to define this extensive activity, and depending on how this very thing was described to or accessed by someone, it could be easily misunderstood.
Design really took a considerable time to be accepted, not only as a higher course in universities, but also to be considered as a relevant field in businesses and industries [4]. Once it was accepted, it rapdily grew to become a series of the most important job functions in companies which strive for innovation in their portfolio. But Business and Human Resources professionals had not the same training to understand Design. Even harder, marketing and publicity professionals started to rob many of Design accomplishments by saying they were already trained in what most designers say they were the best in. And maybe they were right: Design was not created by designers. It was created by architects, engineers, journalists, scientists, artists…
This created a huge problem — the Design and the image of Design. The first one is what results from the work of designers, but it was not well assimilated by others, which vulgarly used the word design to label aesthetic and artistic properties of products. And that’s the problem! Design deals with these things too, but only in the surface. If you go deeper, it goes far beyond that [6]. Companies are already very aware of this, but the common folk isn’t.
Popular design — with a ‘d’ minus — is commonly associated to printing services and even small commercial branding. Most TV propaganda also talks a lot about design in popular products as a visual layer. Yes, they are wrong. However, Academic Design, on the other hand, is not very concerned in serving this least favoured group [7]. How many designers I know, myself included, are trying to teach common people about Design?
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That said, we should stop a little bit and ask ourselves: if there is nobody helping these smaller customers with graphic services, would we be doing it? Why are we so upset about someone who knows a little of Illustrator or Photoshop, trying to legally gain his/her life? Probably they are not as half good as a Designer is, but they saw an opportunity and taken it. Is this wrong? Why is the name design so important after all?
Academic Design is elitist. Amateur design is not
And then, we finally come to what this article first stated: there is not right or wrong when assuming a ‘design title’ in a profession. Amateur design has already proven its value, serving customers usually not attended by well educated designers. Design is elitist [7], and is usually attained to some idea of luxury and futility. If you are an experienced designer, you must have lived, at least once, the situation where the company you work for uses to say they are a “design-oriented institution” or they “use Desigh Thinking” as a primary methodology. But many times, they don’t know a thing about Design, or Design Thinking, or why they put post-its on the wall… They consume Design as a product, because Design is the new fashion.
Depending on how much research and tests are performed, and how much methodic is a professional, he/she should have the right to call themselves Designers, because some of them do more Design than many higher educated professionals! Many top of the class Design students end up becoming the worst professionals, as they start to think they are able to make a good design because of their titles, jumping very important stages of the design process. In the end, what [good] designers are really good in is solving problems. They received the proper education and were prepared to make useful and social oriented things.
If a baker or a hair stylist execute their works with the same level of planning and a well paced execution, with user engagement, they could be considered good designers as well. And before you get baffled with this article, don’t worry, there will always exist enough space for you to make your professional contribution — you just need to know your place and bear in mind that not everyone has the conditions to pay high for a specialist: sometimes, their problems are also very small to involve a Designer.
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References
[1] HELLER, Steven. What do we call ourselves now?. First published in Eye no. 63 vol. 16 2007. http://www.eyemagazine.com/opinion/article/what-do-we-call-ourselves-now
[2] BÜRDEK, Bernhard E.. Design: História, Teoria e Prática do Design de Produtos. — 2 ed. — Blucher, 2010 (in portuguese).
[3] CARDOSO, Rafael. Uma Introdução à História do Design. — 3 ed. — Blucher, 2008 (in portuguese).
[4] CARDOSO, Rafael. Design para um Mundo Complexo. — 1 ed. — Ubu, 2016 (in portuguese).
[5] Design. Cambridge Dictionary. Cambridge University Press, 2020. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pt/dicionario/ingles/design
[6] VAN BERGEN, E. et al.. Design the New Business / produced by Erik Roscam Abbing & Robert Zwamborn. Zilver Innovation, 2012.
[7] Instituto Faber-Ludens. Design Livre. — 1 ed. — São Paulo, Clube dos Autores, 2012 (in portuguese).
