a very solid article on the difference between design and style. for all you designers out there, and those of you who use the things we design, it's a good read. an excerpt:
"Styling is as crucial to good branding work as design, and maybe more so, but it’s not a replacement for it.) Not at all: it’s a term that is useful in the world because it observes—preserves—an important distinction. "For, as my mentor Jon Olson always reminds me, the practice of design necessarily involves solving problems. Further, these problems present constraints; whether these originate in the client’s budget, the target audience’s availability, or in the technical limitations of the medium is immaterial.
a very solid article on the difference between design and style. for all you designers out there, and those of you who use the things we design, it's a good read. an excerpt:
"Styling is as crucial to good branding work as design, and maybe more so, but it’s not a replacement for it.) Not at all: it’s a term that is useful in the world because it observes—preserves—an important distinction. "For, as my mentor Jon Olson always reminds me, the practice of design necessarily involves solving problems. Further, these problems present constraints; whether these originate in the client’s budget, the target audience’s availability, or in the technical limitations of the medium is immaterial. "The important part of this idea is that the task of the designer is to present the client with a solution within an ambit circumscribed by factors beyond his or her control, factors that limit the ability to unrestrainedly impose personal taste. When a designer—a Paul Rand, a Saul Bass, a Neville Brody—can consistently succeed at this and still develop a recognizable personal style, well, that (by my lights, anyway) is where all the artistry resides. "Exercises in pure styling like A Bathing Ape, or to a significantly lesser but still important extent, the work of people like Shepard Fairey, fail this test. A Bathing Ape addresses no issue, solves no problem, admits no constraints. It’s about nothing but itself, a blank screen onto which the customer can project any desired attribute: all of which makes it the ultimate antibrand for a headlong-rushing, amnesiac culture like Japan, but a piss-poor example of design. "And, coming full circle now, kids who mistake this kind of work for design are the same ones most likely to feel that the price of admission to the ongoing discussion consists of little more than throwing one Photoshop layer over another, slapping some freeware fonts over the thing, and braying about “reprazenting.”