Design Vs Art

Design is not art

I remember when I used to tell people about my major, I mostly get responses along the line of “Oh you like to draw? or “I’m sure you’re good at drawing”. Actually, I can. But I’m a lot better at Technical Drawing (visual communication involving the accurate composition of lines and objects to describe function). This experience taught me a lot about people’s perceptions of art and design. For some reason, people usually equate design with art or interpret them to mean the same thing. Design can be a work of art, but it is never the other way around.

Art is an expression of human imagination and creative skill. It may or may not express meaningful ideas and it may not even be aesthetically pleasing to be called art. Like many creative endeavors, art is broad and somewhat subjective. It can even be non-visual, where it represents things that can not be particularly seen but can be more or less felt or experienced. For example, in spoken word, theatre, literature, or auditory performances. But we cannot say the same for design. According to Margolin in 1985 ca, Design is simply what people have created to satisfy needs and organize their environment. This just means that the primary purpose or goal of design is problem-solving.

One major difference is the fact that art seeks to be interpreted but the design always interprets a problem first. Okay let me give you an example; a beautiful painting may seek to make you feel delighted, and an abstract one may make you feel confused. But let’s say a building, primarily doesn’t seek to make you feel anyway, it exists to provide one of the most basic needs of humans which is shelter. That is its main purpose. But keep in mind that a building might also make you feel delightful but that is not its core function. Just imagine living in a beautiful house that has a leaking roof, I am very sure it would leave you feeling more frustrated than delighted.

What I’m trying to say is that art seeks to produce an emotional response, to speak to your subconscious, and to elicit delight. Design can do these as well, but that is not what makes its design. Rather design first interprets a problem or a need. This is because the main purpose of design is to provide meaning, produce an effect or supply an experience. At its core, it is simply a problem-solving adventure. I mean, art does not need to have a functional capacity to exist but design exists for this cause. In the same vein, design does not necessarily need to have an aesthetic capacity to be considered as ‘good design’ but it is highly recommended. This is mostly because of the aesthetic-usability effect, where attractive designs are perceived to be more functional and useable by people, and in humans, it’s called the halo effect, where conventionally attractive people are perceived to be better in some way, but I digress.

So what is then considered good design? Well for me, I would say good design is when aesthetics and function form a beautiful harmony (called eurythmy in architecture). It is simply one that allows the user to achieve their goals while also providing a delightful emotion for them. As for art, Matt Shilan thinks a great piece of art needs to connect, it should have some element of truth that resonates with them so well that it leaves the audience with a piece of itself. I believe that design is everywhere around you, in fact, everything in life is designed, either unconsciously or consciously. How well it is done, is what makes all the difference. Likewise, I agree with Federico Babina when he said and I quote “I believe that in everything there is a bit of art, we just have to discover how to see it”.

Another difference between the two is the fact that there is no universal formula for creating a great piece of art. There are no rules, just guidelines that ideally should be followed but when deviated away from, do not cause chaos or upset the balance of art, but might even help to create a masterpiece. As a matter of fact, some of the world’s greatest art pieces were born from broken rules. Remember, it is Pablo Picasso that said: “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist”. He is one known to break the rules very seamlessly to produce great works of art, some of the greatest the world has ever known.

The same cannot be particularly applied to design. This is because design as a whole usually affects some form of human life and day-to-day activity, sometimes it might even be a matter of life and death. Therefore, it is usually guided by a set of principles that are based on certain cognitive skills of humans and their perception of their environment. When rules are broken in design, it can lead to negative events ranging from annoying discomforts to fatal disasters and maybe even loss of life or lives. An accurate example of where design was responsible for the death of many would be an event that occurred in January 1992, where an Air Inter Flight 148 crashed into the Vosges Mountains while approaching Strasbourg Airport in France, killing 85 of the 96 onboard. Although there were a number of causes, one of the most outstanding was a poorly designed read-out making it easy to set vertical speed thinking you were adjusting angles and vice versa. That singular mistake of the designer caused a misinterpretation of the plot and sadly, people lost their lives.

Another less fatal example has to be from the Miss Universe event of 2015. Where both Steve and Miss Colombia were publicly embarrassed because the layout of the revealed card was confusing. The font and positioning of the text should have made things easier to read, not harder. Trust me there are several other examples where a slight mistake of designers caused negative outcomes for people, some less fatal than others.

About the similarities, both art and design are highly subjective. this means their interpretation mostly depends on individual preferences, not a general logical conclusion. This is because one person’s idea of beauty may not necessarily be another’s; the same piece of artwork can trigger different emotions in different people. In the same vein, one person’s awesome experience using a product may just be the next person’s fair design. This is why user-centered design is preached in recent times, especially in product design. This is because it is almost impossible to meet every single person’s needs with one product. But a product is more efficient when you understand the specific needs of your target audience, that way you make the perfect people satisfied with your design.

Both creative endeavors are very important to human life, one is not higher than the other, but rather they co-exist together to make this world a much better place to live in.