Description

What happened to design? When did it get overtaken by the researchers and the bean-counters?

Music and links from this episode

1. Mozart - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik allegro by Advent Chamber Orchestra
2. Quasi Motion by Kevin MacLeod
3. Walk That Dog by U.S. Army Blues
4. ACOUSTIC BLUES by Jason Shaw

Line-by-line notes

1. When graphic design first became a profession, things were simpler
2. Classic design used to be much simpler to understand
3. Dieter Rams 10 principles for good design are just as relevant today as they were in the 1970s
4. He said
5. Good design is innovative
6. Good design makes a product useful
7. Good design is aesthetic
8. Good design makes a product understable
9. Good design is unobtrusive
10. Good design is honest
11. Good design is long lasting
12. Good design is thorough to the last detail
13. Good design is environmental friendly
14. Good design is as little design as possible
15. Why do I feel like—in the pursuit of more and better design—we've forgotten quite a few of these?
16. Where did it all go wrong?
17. This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
18. PLAY MID SONG
19. I'm going to get a little bit controversial in this episode
20. And try and get you to think outside your comfort zone
21. Especially if you're a jobbing designer right now
22. Controversy point one:
23. Designers aren't trusted to do their own jobs anymore
24. And designers are becoming less respected at their craft
25. Before a designer gets involved, often there's lots of research
26. Or testing
27. Or focus groups
28. Or marketing people writing lengthy documents
29. Then making design suggestions before the designer has even started
30. It seems There needs to be a focus group or a large scale research project to back up your design choices for almost anything these days
31. And if a designer isn't sure
32. They'll be asked to test two versions of a design to see which performs best
33. All this stuff erodes the soul of a design
34. Design isn't as simple as that
35. Simply doing the research doesn't automatically create a good design
36. And the research can be, you know, wrong
37. Design needs to be left to the designers
38. Design is as much of a science as it is an art
39. Getting it right isn't as simple as doing the research and saying 'so and so looks like this so we need to look like this'
40. Design is so much more subtle than that
41. In the hands of a good designer, a good marketing strategy can turn into something amazing
42. But in the hands of a poor designer, a good marketing strategy amounts to nothing
43. And there's also the other side of this
44. The side that designers often don't get a say in
45. BAD marketing strategies
46. The research or the strategy is never said to be wrong, it's always the designers fault
47. Strategy and planning can sometimes directly interfere with the end design product
48. Many people are trying to make design a science
49. And design to some extent can be quantified
50. There's rules of design that when followed can produce passable work
51. But this is why I said