Design is important. It’s in our everyday lives. Someone designed everything around you. Unfortunately few things are designed well. Many things have had an unforeseeable design flaw. Or they simply don’t look good. Like the grey, boring and polluting buildings we have created to cover the earth.
Designing is easy. Designing well is hard. Few do it good. Good design serves a purpose, communicates a message, and is aesthetically pleasing at the same time.
And getting something to be noticed in a world where there is so much variety is becoming harder and more challenging.
But we need design and here are 5 reasons why.
Why Design Is Important
01. It Communicates
Design is another way of communication. Every time a designer or artist creates something, they are trying to communicate something to the world.
In fact, design makes communication easier as it can project a message in a simpler way for people to understand. While science can give us facts and statistics, design can be used to translate what is hard to understand to everyone else.
Not to mention, our attention span has become so short because of our mobile phones beeping every 2 minutes. But design is able to communicate something much faster. Additionally, design can capture abstract ideas that are perhaps hard to explain as it is so visual.
If we want people to act for a certain cause, showing them graphs will not persuade them. On the other hand, if they see a well-crafted video or illustration explaining those same things, they are more likely to change themselves and get motivated.
02. It Can Change Opinions
Design can make you think differently. Let’s take filmmaking for example. It’s a very powerful art form. It’s actually what persuaded me to change the way I live. Watching films like Minimalism and Game Changers, inspired me to change myself and alter my daily habits.
Everything from the typography, to the layout and colors, affects how something is perceived by someone. Not everyone will like it but your aim is to get half the people to absolutely love it!
You can use your art and design to inspire people to think differently and change people for the better. You can also educate others in creative ways and raise important issues through artivism. The bottom line is that you can use art can to have a real impact on the world and on society.
03. It Affects How We Feel
People don’t empathize with statistics. However, creatives have the power to make people feel a certain way. For each person, design means something different.
Depending on what something looks like, it makes you feel something different. We enjoy looking at beautiful products and buildings. It’s the reason so many people spend so much money. Because they want to acquire things that look good as it makes them feel good about themselves. Whether it’s something in nature or something we designed, we enjoy admiring or using things that look good.
However, art and design can make us feel a wide range of emotions. And the person next to you might feel something different even you are looking at the same thing.
Saying this, we can use it in our society smartly
04. Can Make Our Lives Better And Easier
Humans designed this society we are living in from scratch. The only reason we are where we are today is because creative people were bold enough to introduce crazy ideas into the world. Design is everywhere. It’s what made every single product you use in your daily life and what made buildings come into existence.
It can make our lives better in various ways. First of all, well-designed products can make us save time and allow us to focus on more important activities. Additionally, good architecture and interior design make living in our homes more enjoyable, and finally, it allows us to do things that would be otherwise impossible to complete. Unquestionably, the design has changed the world for good.
Moreover, design can make life easier to understand. Especially because we are exposed to so much information from advertising, social media, and the news for instance. We often don’t have time to read through long manuals and articles in our busy lives. Well, with good design, we will no longer have to.
05. It Can Save The World
The final reason why design matters is because it can save the world. Alongside the brilliant minds of other professions, we can redesign a more sustainable society.
Without a doubt, we can use it to solve all of our modern problems. Design is what will bring everyone and everything together. Using the knowledge we have, we can design ‘green’ buildings, better and more sustainable products, and create a circular economy.
The Impact Of Design On Society
Design has an impact on your life every single day. Those people who say art and design are not important must live in a cave because society is built on design. It’s so important and we cannot underestimate its power.
We wouldn’t be a civilization without it. It’s this creativity that separates us from other animals. Nevertheless, there’s still room for improvement.
Nevertheless, we now need to take a more sustainable approach towards design. There are many ways in which we can achieve this. Product design, fashion design, graphic design, filmmaking, architecture, etc, all have room to become more eco-friendly. Some more than others, but they all have some kind of impact on the world.
Conclusion
There are so many answers to the question ‘Why is design important?’. It’s undeniable that it plays a big role in our society and it will continue to do so.
Unfortunately, most things in our society are designed poorly. But we continue to build and create them because it’s what we are used to.
A new product can either fix a problem or create a new problem. Sometimes a product is made to create a product only to make the customer buy another product to fix that first problem. This is neither good design nor ethical design. That’s dirty marketing schemes.
It’s time for designers and companies to start designing for the good of society and the good of the planet.
All images from Unsplash
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