Why Design is not Art: In Simple English
One of the big unanswered circular debates out there is the Design versus Art question. Why is it that artists almost never want to be called designers, and yet more than a gazillion designers seem to want recognition as artists? Hasn’t that ever struck you as slightly odd? Designers make money but I can assure you that artists are usually lucky to recoup their cost of creation to purchase new paints or inks or paper. Design and art are two different things.
Art with a Big A
The first problem is that we’ve repurposed the word art to mean anything we want it to mean, so when I say art I really mean Art in this post. Art with a big A, that which is created by artists or aspiring artists or artistic creation. The generalisation of the word art can mean that we stuck beads onto a slipper and showed it to Uncle Harry, or made a mood board that looks warm and cosy, or we did some lead lighting on our front window. Not necessarily Art, if you get my drift.
Art is not ALL about Pretty Pictures
The second problem, which is where graphic designers seem to fall into the conversation, is the often misguided idea that art has to be ALL about pretty pictures. One creates pretty pictures, especially commercially, and voila one is an artist. As opposed to an Artist, if you see my point. Art is not just about creating pretty pictures, especially for commercialisation or mass consumption. Art is about creating works which attempt to evoke a response in the viewer, to make them rethink assumptions or look at the world in a new or specific way. Art is an historical pursuit of our species to make sense of the world and ourselves and the fabric of the universe. Yes that sounds grand, but it’s more true of Art than it is of Design.
Design with a Big D
Don’t get me wrong, design is not a bad thing. Far from it. And similiarly design has a big D version – Design. This Design in the true sense does not necessarily mean someone makes pretty pictures either. Bill Buxton is a Designer. Design is about solving problems and sorting through hypotheses and alternatives to create the best solution to something – the best chair, a car, an advertisement campaign or a cyclone proof umbrella. Design is about understanding people and the user experience. But it’s not Art. Design as a career pays a lot more than Art in the real world for most cases so Designers probably should be quite content not being called Artists. Design often is about meeting commercial outcomes.
Convergence Between Art and Design
However, and this is where it gets more confusing, there is a convergence grey area. There are some designers who could be loosely called artists and vice versa. With the computer’s ability to replicate and manipulate images, for example, you see more graphic design feeding into art. So my problem isn’t that graphic designers can’t be artists, or vice versa. It’s that being a graphic designer is different from being an artist, just as it’s different to drive trains than it is to drive trucks.
Underlying both fields there is a commonality of theory about form and placement and representation. That’s not what the question usually asks – it usually asks for an assertion that graphic designers are artists in their own right. No, logo design is not Art. No, making a poster or a t-shirt for a business outcome is not Art. Making objects or products for general consumption is also not Art.
And it’s part of the reason why you often see people slapping their foreheads asking why something that looks totally out of the normal box IS Art? The answer, really, is self-evident. It was created to evoke a response either internally or externally.
There will always be a convergence between art and design – potters make cups commercially as well as pieces of artwork. And a train driver can be a truck driver even though these are different roles. The sculpture made by the potter does not miraculously turn the cup into Art. If that makes sense, and I hope it does.
Illustrator does not make you an Artist
My point at the end to take away from this is simple – one’s ability to use Photoshop or Illustrator at a professional level does not give an automagic entry into the world or qualification of the Artist. And artists do learn their mastery over a lifetime.
If you’re a graphic designer that’s great. If you’re a Designer designer, then that’s awesome too. Be good at what you do. If you want to be an artist then start doing Art. Painters paint and writers write – if you’re an Artist it will pour out of you to do Art.
But I’ve really never understood the graphic designers obsession with being called artists? Artists really don’t like being called graphic designers. Of course, we can argue about this stuff in a circle forever and it won’t make a scrap of difference, it’s just food for thought. Be yourself.
