What is design? It is something that can help us in our life.
A question that can generate many debates and points of view since many people see design as what my nephew does with his PC in an afternoon or that poster of the town festivals, the truth is that the design is quite a specialty found in practically every aspect of our life. Did you know that the distribution of cities were created through design? organization, purpose and problem solving are some of the aspects of this discipline.
The design seeks solve problems by posing solutions In search of the greatest possible efficiency from a practical point of view (in most cases) where it combines creativity with theoretical factors, managing to create very attractive results on many occasions. Discover how design helps us solve many problems of our day to day with highly creative solutions.
The design far from what many think it is not a graphical solution where the artist / designer expresses ideas on posters, cards and all kinds of media but it is a specialty that goes beyond what we can imagine. We could say that design arises as a human need, the need to solve problems in a logical way, because design is precisely that, the search for solutions to all kinds of problems. We could say that when we think about how we order the distribution of our house we are doing design because we are adjusting our space in such a way that we achieve a practical result, for example the use of space.
Un practical case to better understand what design is is to see it with an example that helps us to visualize it better (raising this scheme is already design). Let's imagine that we want to sit in our house but we have no means for it, for that reason we think of a solution to our problem, in this case the simplest proposal is get a chair that suits what we need in our case. In this case we will need a plastic chair because outdoors it will withstand the weather better, it also needs to be resistant so that it can adapt to all kinds of people and it must be visually elegant so that it pleases the eye. In order to have a chair that adapts to all this we have had to make a list of requirements for our chair to serve its main purpose, in this case to serve as an outside seat for people.
The design must meet certain objectives
All design must meet a series of objectives and look for results that are optimal for what was designed because It is useless to design a chair if you cannot sit on it, unless the purpose of the chair is not to sit on it but to observe it, if so, it would be fulfilling its objective since the purpose of that chair was not to serve as a seat but as a decoration. It is played between the visual and the utility looking for optimal means to reach the purpose of things.
When we walk down the street we see how all kinds of urban furniture designed for different purposes, all that furniture must be attractive and useful for users to improve everyone's life, even for a very short time a universal design adapted to all types of people. The streets, public transport systems, the distribution of elements and many other things that we find in our daily lives on the street were created using design as a tool. If we want to see a good example of urban design we just have to visit the city of Barcelona, its streets and its distribution are pure efficient design.
The design from an advertising / visual point of view uses exactly the same that we have seen in the example of the chair, advertising poses a problem and solves it in one way or another through the use of advertising graphics.
The message must be clear
Good design communicates, transmits and meets objectives efficiently, for that reason advertising is a good example to refer to the use of design as a means to reach some ends we determine. Advertising always seeks convey ideas that have been previously defined by means of posters and all kinds of advertising media.
On a social level social advertising design can be a good ally because if we want to create "A good chair" in other words a good message, we must have clear ideas beforehand to reach our objectives. Today there are large advertising campaigns where we see reflected all kinds of values transmitted graphically. Advertising works not because it's creative but because the objectives have been previously defined, it is useless to have a creative shrimp ad if our company sells chairs ...
Far from questions about the ethics of advertising, consumption and capitalism, we find in advertising a very powerful communication tool to solve problems of all kinds.
Clearly communication is linked to design since the purpose of an advertisement is to convey clearly. In the example images we can see first misuse of design Well, the message is not clear, on the other hand in the second image we see clearly the idea that you want to convey. How to transmit an idea? It is certainly a question that we must ask ourselves before doing any type of advertising.
The first image does not make clear the message that the person wanted to convey, instead the second image is an example of good design It clearly communicates the objective (to sell beer).
Play with words
If we look closely at all advertising designs (good designs) always clearly represent what you want to convey playing with all kinds of graphic resources. Advertising can play with words, with meanings, with emotions, you can play with everything in a very subtle way but always thanks to the previous design that forms its invisible skeleton for the user.
Design will always be present in one way or another in all aspects of our life because it is a medium not a simple profession where the role of the designer is play with logic and a lot of creativity looking solve a problem differently. There are many professionals in the world of design who have spoken about design and its objectives, if you are interested in learning more about this, you can watch the following video.
If you're passionate about advertising design and you would like to see many other references for your future graphic projects you can see the following references:
- 60 examples of creative advertising on Pinterest.
- Advertising and communication on Pinterest.
- Creative social advertising
- Universal design