Communication through Design

I just read a great comment on another web designer’s site that included a very important line: “Design is about communication, not decoration.”

What IS design meant to accomplish? In college, I was taught that we students needed to cut through the clutter to stand out as successful designers. Although there was an importance placed on getting the message out, we were more trained to design uniquely and beautifully. There was an intense emphasis on being well-rounded artistically, so we were encouraged to use our own photos, graphics and illustrations whenever possible.

I am often asked what I do for a living. Back when I was concentrating more on print work, I replied that I was a graphic designer. Many people asked what that entailed. I had a pretty standard answer, as trying to explain graphic design (without making a speech) always somewhat eluded me: “Well, I design logos, ads, things like that.” For some reason, that wasn’t enough for most people, so I ended up saying this a lot: “Oh, I make stuff pretty.”

Being extremely cynical, I could usually get away with that. The person asking would laugh; sometimes it would entail the dreaded in-depth discussion of what I do and how I do it (for some reason I always felt inarticulate about it). Now I realize that I should have come up with something better. Who knows who your next client might be? It might be the guy sitting across from you that might have just felt blown off, or felt that you didn’t value your services enough to smile, suck it up and have a speech prepared just in case.

Now, as a graphic designer who has shifted to web design almost exclusively because those are the jobs I have been landing, I usually just tell people that I am a web designer. (If they ask when my mouth is full, which for some reason is often, my husband inevitably replies, “Rebecca designs websites,” and launches into his sales mode and pitches my services for me. I love him for that.)

People know what websites are, so I usually don’t have to explain much more than that. When I do, or am asked what makes a successful website, I now have a standard answer down for that, something like “My job, in a nutshell, is to create an online presence for a client that communicates quickly to their viewers whatever products, services or information they are providing. It is necessary to grab a viewer within seconds so they don’t go looking somewhere else.” If I need to continue on, I do, but usually the following questions are the fun ones (what kind of clients do I have, do I enjoy what I do).

But I am still making things pretty. I love that part of it; trying to convey a client’s mission statement via a layout. If we could accomplish what we do by just putting type or images on a page without any styles or creativity at all, we would have really boring jobs. I remember something that a college professor stated: “When you can’t take anything else away without destroying it, you’re there.”