How stimulating to read Milton Glaser’s definition of design:
“Design is the process of going from an existing condition to a preferred one. Observe that there’s no relationship to art.”
I will make sure that this definition is included in my first day class lecture at Columbia University, where I teach Multiplatform Design & Storytelling.
It is a definition that many of us in editorial design have followed for years, but Glaser articulated best and this definition is a keeper. I hope someone turns it into a poster that should hang in art departments everywhere—and not just in newsrooms.
At a recent CNN en Español interview, moderator Guillermo Arduino asked me what I thought good design is. I said: “It’s design that serves a purpose, that has a function. It is there to make the content easier to grasp. If it does not do that. If it is decoration, then it is not good design.”
I trained as a journalist and perhaps that is why my view is one of design as functionality.
Glaser's definition emphasizes the same:
“Design is the process of going from an existing condition to a preferred one….As you get older you get clearer about that distinction about design and art.”
Indeed, we do, Mr. Glaser. But it is never too early to pass that bit of wisdom to a new generation of designers.
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