Design is everywhere

Design is everywhere; on books, in architecture, in technology and even the clothes we wear have some design printed on them. Being a graphic designer involves working with symbols, typography, images that help build a visual medium that communicates a message or increases awareness of something. “To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit, it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify...to persuade...” (Samara 2007 P6). As a designer I have control over what goes where and most importantly what the reason or idea is behind my design. I am in my final year of doing graphic design and from what I have learned, I have gained valuable knowledge. I want to look at design that is more ethical now and what makes good design.
From my knowledge and research there are lots of designs out there some good and some bad. Then there are designs that just look amazing. In the last two years of doing graphic design I have a farley good idea of what is ethical design. In my opinion I think this is what makes ethical design of today, design that has an idea behind is, design that uses typography well, design that is spacious, design that is thought through and design that simplified. Most of what I have written is what I as a designer have been taught. I can say I agree from what I have seen from my research for my projects, design does combine these numbers of things that form good graphic design. The designer that I think started it all was Paul Rand, his simple use of space and ideas made his design work great. Big design agencies all have design that is ethical I believe, their fresh ideas and clean look invite the clients in for business and get the company on the radar, Turner Duckworth is a big design agency and most of their design work is very modern and full of clever ideas. I feel my course offers me what I need to get into the design world by visiting different design agencies and showing my work to them.


I was interested in what professional designers had to say about design particularly David Carson, he looks at a word or an article and sees rather than making it look nice he does the opposite, his work is much disorganized and seems to all over the place. It was nice to see designers being recognised for design that was not in order didn’t have much thought to it. It’s hard to sometimes get my personality across in my design work and looking at what Carson does, it shows his emotion and personality through his work. Carson’s work in my option doesn’t fit commercial design work, it might work in some areas but in most part I think it will remain a bit dated.

What makes good design? I think you know when see a good piece of design work, design that’s communicating the message and showing the idea well makes good design. When you design something having a good idea is important as it gives a reason for what you have designed. As a designer I spend most of my time thinking of an idea and doing research than designing, designing comes at the end after you thought of the idea. The creative process that I go through as a designer is important because it shows that I have looked at many possibilities and narrowed the ideas down to chose the best one. I think another thing which is very important, valuable and informative is research. It’s important to do research as it helps me get the idea for that particular project. Research is very important part of my course and helps me better understand what I need to do.
Combining what I have written about ethical design and what makes good design, they both have similarities therefore design that is acceptable I could say and design that is good which I guess would fit into ethical design.
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