“I want to be a designer because…” — 2007 edition
Last year, one of my professors asked us to complete this statement every year while limiting our answer to 15 words or less. So here I am a year later, doing it again.
I want to be a designer because…
… I want to make things that will improve people’s physical and emotional lives.
There’s another answer, but it’s more than 15 words:
… I am unable to stop asking the “why” and “how” questions about the world and I think studying design will help me find some answers.
Those are related statements, but one is a process that will never end, the other is an action I want to be able to perform.
When I started down this road a few years ago, I was convinced I wanted to study ID and move into the ID job world. The more I learn about capital-D design, the more I start looking for commonalities between design and other knowledge domains. When I started learning to draw objects I started seeing things differently and laying out diagrams on whiteboards differently. Learning about the American System of production in the 18th and 19th century has started me thinking about how desktop fabrication will change business models of global corporations. Looking at how color and typography are used, I am beginning to understand why I hate the default text coloring in most source code editors and starting to think about ways to improve the text display.
The more I learn about design the more questions I have and the less sure I am of my previous answers to questions.
But that’s a good thing, in my opinion.
(Oh, and here’s my answer from a year ago when I first answered this question.)
I totally hear you there. The more Japanese I learn, the less likely I am to try to use it with actual Japanese people, I have found.
Comment by Howard Berkey — 2007/11/14 @ 14:43