In his April 30 BusinessWeek design blog, Bruce Nussbaum caused a stir when he asked, “Is Design Too Important To Be Left Only To Designers?” He writes:
“There is huge anxiety among designers and design educators at the encroachment of business, education, health, energy, transportation and other fields into Design. The evolution of Design from an individual working intuitively to shape beautiful things into a collaborative process of discovering what can come next and making it happen is attracting people to Design for new ways to journey through these confusing and uncertain times.”
He then describes the discussion to replace liberal arts with design “as the intellectual foundation for giving us the tools to navigate the 21st Century.” He notes that the voices of designers and design educators seem curiously absent from this dialogue, driven primarily by business and other fields—academically and in practice. He ends with the following observation and call to action:
“[T]he vigor now infusing design appears to be coming from outside the field from non-designers. And it may very well be just fine that non-designers take design to the next level. But probably not. Design is still unpacking its intuitive powers as well as integrating new knowledge to make it even more powerful. One of the core competencies of design is the ability to integrate and iterate. Now is the time for the practice, the design practice, to do just that.”
Bruce’s post shows comments from readers who agree or disagree, take issue with the question itself, or pose their own questions. I view this lively debate optimistically as evidence of design’s relevance in contemporary education, practice, culture and everyday conversation across disciplines and professions. And I don’t take offense at Bruce’s question. Granted, his description of traditional design as a solitary, intuitive practice overlooks the very thing that makes design so intriguing in the current discourse. At the core of design is a dynamic tension between—and integration of—seeming opposites to plan, devise, create and invent: right- and left-brain activities, intuition and rational thought, aesthetics and function, individual and collective needs and wants, non-commercial and commercial concerns.
This is a minor matter, however. As design students, practitioners and educators, we should view the intent of Bruce’s post—and provocative question—positively. It advocates design’s importance in shaping our interactions and the world in which we live. It urges thoughtful discourse about our role as critics, participants or leaders of this movement. It also raises other questions about how we define “design” and “designers,” and evolve the field to ensure continued relevance and resonance in a rapidly changing world.
Whether you agree or disagree with Bruce, the debate seems to be a good thing. Let me know what you think.
One Comment
This month, Fast Company had an interesting post by Robert Brunner (of Pentagram fame and most recently of Ammunition) entitled “Design Is Too Important to Be Left to the Thinkers.” Brunner’s knee-jerk response (he perhaps disingenuously claims the issue was raised at a cocktail party rather than having read the cited article) seems indicative of some designers’ polarizing overreaction to the alleged encroachment of business into our domain. C’mon, Mr. Brunner—the middle can be a happy place, after all.