THE BIG DEBATE
- Samuel Meany
- Mar 27, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: May 4, 2020
“Every person is not a designer: Design should be the reserve of the professional.”
Design is everywhere, inevitably everyone is a designer whether you like it or not.
We arrange the layout of our rooms, we capture pics for our insta, we choose the outfits we wear. We build, we create, we arrange and restructure every day. These are all elements of design. As Nobel prize winner Herbert Simon said.
“Everyone designs who devises course of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones”.
Basically, whoever changes situations into preferred ones is actually designing.
Design is not just a profession; Design is a hobby.
If we only let the professionals design, there’d be a lot of unhappy people out there. My father for instance, He’s a geography teacher but he’s also a designer. He’s designed sheds and chicken coops. He’s built walls, fences and dog kennels. He takes photos, he edits them. He is a designer, but it is not his profession. It is genuinely unfair to leave design to the reserve of the professional as you are stripping the ordinary person of their hobby, their pastime, their form of enjoyment. It’s like telling people they can’t play soccer because ‘It’s the reserve of the professional’.
Leading on from this, if we only allowed the professionals to design... The world would’ve missed out on some of the greatest design ideas in our history.
· Bernard Silverman (electrical engineer) and the barcode technology
· Mary Anderson (real estate developer) and the windscreen wiper.
· Sherman Poppen (engineer) and the snowboard.
If these people left these innovations and explorations to the professional designers.
The world, as we know it, would be vastly different.
If only designers are allowed to design our world
doesn't that limit our scope for developments to our societies?
if we only let professionals design, we’re generating less ideas!! Instantly, we are limiting potential solutions and preventing creativity and inspiration.
That is why design should be universal and for all,
like the famous Austrian designer Victor Papanek said
“The truism that design is a process all human beings are engaged in”
Some of you may know of Etsy, it is an online platform where 25 million members present their homemade design projects. These members are hobby designers, people who express their creative opinion online. To disallow them from designing and showcasing their work here would be unjustified and unprecedented.
Humans are born to be creative and inventive; half our brains are wired to these innovative traits. To constrain people from demonstrating these attributes because they don't have the “professional” title is unfair in today’s modern world
Design is everywhere,
Everyone is a designer whether you like it or not.
Thank you for your time.
Reflection:
Although the debate was not exactly how the class expected, I think it was a major success. There were a few technical difficulties but everyone explained their views clearly. I was arguing against the statement “Every person is not a designer: Design should be the reserve of the professional.” In the process of researching my statement, I found it difficult to know where I stood on the topic initially, but after further research I firmly believe that every person really is a designer. The most significant thing I learned from the research was the fact that design is everywhere, there is design involved in everything. From the smallest thumb tack to the biggest buildings in the world, design is major factor. There is elements of design in nearly every profession out there. A chef designs the layout of his food, he also chooses the food and their flavors that go well together. A team manager design his team with different players and different formations. There are many other examples, before the debate I didn't pay enough attention where design is evident, going forward I am now more likely to spot good design where ever it may be.
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