Steve Jobs.
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
-Steve Jobs
Although I studied fine art, the reason I decided not to pursue a career as a painter, and instead decided to become a designer, was that I enjoy making things that people actually use.
It was a natural evolution for me to transition from paint to print to pixels. (In fact, I’d always been a pixel jockey, even when I was studying fine art.)
So while it’s a cliche to quote Steve Jobs on design, this Monday as I reflect on my profession, I see divergent paths developing: the AIGA and many illuminati in the design community seem to be encouraging the cult and mystique of the designer-as-artist (or celebrity), promoting surface design and aesthetics over the design of everyday things. At the same time, many of us on the front lines of working design believe fine art is for viewing, and that design is for using. Emotional impact can be an arrow in our design quiver, but it is not the only one.
When we consider our role as designers as greater than simply surface decoration, we can then begin to make real contributions to the way things work, and to the strategies behind our designs.
At a time when innovation and creativity are sorely lacking from those who run our economy, designers can play a pivotal role in our recovery…but only if they decide to scratch the surface.
great points. and case in point, this article: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist_makeover
see how a redesign of craiglists divided kind of along the lines you describe.