Is all designers really just for designers?

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Music and links from this episode

Outsiders in Nome by Mystery Mammal

Route of the Old West Convicts by Fields Ohio

Arrythmia/ a lost battalion of conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off Empire State out of the moon into vacant Ohio factories by The Fucked Up Beat

Line-by-line notes

You've already seen the title of this episode

Design isn't for designers

It's a controversial viewpoint

And one I want to explore in a little more depth

Designers deep down know that design not only isn't for designers

It SHOULDN'T be for designers

But still, we design things that only designers would get

This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess

MUSIC

As I said

I'm presenting a controversial topic

I think lots of designers will see this episode and think

Well, I don't design things for designers

But, I think you're wrong

Often we all design clever logos

Clever websites or clever bits of design

And all that stuff, the majority of it only designers will get or appreciate

Take the classic example, the FedEx logo

How many times have you explained this logo to a non designer to show how clever and deep design can be?

Non designers don't look at things like we do

They don't look at the leading of a paragraph

Or the kerning in a word

They don't look at something and think it could have done with more space

Or the colours are wrong

Or even that the apostrophe is used incorrectly

These are all things we care about as designers

And rightly so, of course rightly so

But the point I'm getting to

Is that lots of this extra detail

Beyond the stuff like proper spacing, leading and kerning

Is all stuff a non designer won't even comprehend

So why do we bother?

If 90% of the intended target audience won't get that clever thing you did with that logo,

Why did you bother?

Now this is as much of a question directed at myself as it is at you

Designers bother with those extra bits for lots of reasons

But the main reason I think is pride

It's my job as a designer to do the best job I can possibly do

And that often means going far and above what a normal person would to care about something that most people won't see or even appreciate

It's a little bit like Steve Job's stories about his dad, Paul Jobs

He tells stories of his dad being a craftsman. And having the ability to make anything

But no matter what he made, he never cut any corners

Even when he made a chest of drawers, he refused to use a poorer quality wood for the back of the drawers that nobody would ever see

And he'd always pay as much attention to the back of a fence as he did the front, the bit that most people would see

That's a desire to do a good job

It's a pride in your work

And that's why designers do what they do, and why I do what I do

It's why most of my work never gets seen by anybody,

And why I draw 300 logos in my sketchbook before I even get to a computer

Designing those little bits for designers is exactly the same thing

It's build in little Easter eggs into my design work, especially branding and logo work

It's something fun to discover

And it's like painting the back of a cabinet

Most people will never ever see it

But that's ok, im cool with that

I do it for that one person

That one person who stumbles across that little nice touch

And when they spot it

They smile

And they feel a little bit warm inside

Because they discovered something most people won't discover.

That's what those extras are for

And I live for those

MUSIC

This was AADA and I'm Craig Burgess

Music featured in this episode was

Outsiders in Nome by Mystery Mammal

Route of the Old West Convicts by Fields Ohio

Arrythmia/ a lost battalion of conversationalists jumping down the stoops off fire escapes off Empire State out of the moon into vacant Ohio factories by The Fucked Up Beat

For a line by line rundown... /ep131

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