Do You Know Who You are as a Designer?
I’ve started watching the latest season of Design Star, a reality show on HGTV looking for their next network host. The first episode showed the auditions of those trying to get on the show, among which was a 23-year-old designer who self-described himself as “amazing”. While his presentation board was nice and he had some impressive work to show, he was unable to answer any of the questions asked by the judges.
The judges asked the young hopeful why he chose a certain floor tile for the design he presented, and his answer was, “because I like it”. When asked, what is your design style, his answer was, “whatever the client wants.” When asked, who are you as a designer, nothing but a blank stare. His inability to communicate his design or even answer basic questions was disappointing to say the least. For goodness sake, he was given a $400,000 budget for this particular project! If I were the client, I would be more than hesitant to trust someone would couldn’t talk to me about design or tell me why the design I am paying for even works.
Being able to support your design and know why the decisions you made are the right one are critical for any real designer. Having an eye for what looks good is only a small part of a foundation to build on and without reasoning and function, there is no design, just decoration.
Much to my chagrin, this man made it into the final nine who actually get to be on the show. Hopefully he’ll learn a lot!
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Comments (2)
Amen, Angela. I have always thought that the first sign of an inexperienced design communicator is the term “like”. Design is either effective towards it?s goals, or it needs help to get there… like has nothing to do with it.
It’s sometimes good to recognize that this can simply be an inability to communicate correctly, not an inability to make good design decisions.
I found it difficult to explain my design decisions when I moved from producing designs for myself and friends to producing designs for clients. Luckily I had a Creative Director to handle that. Without my design methodology or approach changing, I was able to just learn how to communicate my decisions better.
Also, the question “who are you as a designer?” sounds like TV fluff and not something that a client would care for much. I’m not even sure it’s a question that can be answered–if it even makes sense. He should have asked her “Who are you as a Reality TV show host?” Talk about a blank face.
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