What is design?

A better question would be “What is good design”?

If you look closely at the general quality of corporate design you can be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that few people actually know the answer. What is even more concerning is that most design professionals don’t know!

If they did, then we’d be seeing a higher standard of work filtering onto our supermarket shelves, our TV commercials and company prospectus’.

Design begins with an attitude. The message comes later. The attitude needs to translate into the personality of the organisation, then transform into the communication.

Sound a bit esoteric? Well it is. But Milton was right when he taught us that design is not art. Yet how many designers approach a client brief with decoration in mind. Or fashion. Or the next awards night. That’s why TV commercials look the way they do. Uncannily similar. Decoration and fashion have no place in the design world. If you want cut-through, then be brave and DON’T do what everyone else is doing.

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