It is not enough to just be a designer. It is not enough to be an illustrator, or an animator, or a web developer.
I’ve designed for a steady diet of unusual clients (a fashion designer in Italy, a Bolivian wine bar, a New Zealand boat manufacturer, a Russian hosting company, etc.). I’ve learned project management the hard/best way.
I’ve hiked to the bottom of the grand canyon, I briefly owned a snarky t-shirt company based on mad science, I helped set up a rave to raise money for Unicef, as a kid I used to try to improve ads on the radio and TV, and on vacation I make up wild stories about who I am. Mischief is fun! I’m a mild mannered design history geek, and so I bring you an excerpt from Henry Drefuss’s manifesto,
Designing for People
We bear in mind that the object being worked on is going to be ridden in, sat upon, looked at, talked into, activated, operated, or in some other way used by people individually or en masse.
When the point of contact between the product and the people becomes a point of friction, then the design has failed.
On the other hand if people are made safer, more comfortable, more eager to purchase, more efficient — or just plain happier — by contact with the product, then the designer has succeeded.
