What Separates a Good Designer from a Great Designer
Whilst getting ready this morning, i was thinking about this blog and what i would eventually post on it when i got round to it, deciding my first post needed to be abit of an eye catcher. So i brainstormed what would be a good opening statement, a question sprung to mind after looking at myself, other designers and the work produced by all.
In my opinion there is just two things that separate good designers from great designers:-
The first of these being passion; there are alot of designers around.. actually a hell of a lot of designers that simply see the world of creation, visual communication as a job, just a job. There is no real drive, they do not strive to improve, happy with just a pay check and being able to have the title of 'Website Designer' or something likewise as it seems nowadays that's the 'cool thing to do', everyone wants to be arty these days. Of course this is all because we live in a fashion driven society and everyone is affected, there is not a person in the world that can say they do not care about fashion on some level, know one likes a liar, so don't.
'Passion is the key' to producing amazing work, without passion you will never strive for perfection, you will never have anything more than just money to drive your ambitions (yes money is a good source of drive) but it won't take you as far as passion will. Intrinsic rewards have a far greater effect on your person than extrinsic ones do. Passion is the fire inside that simple money can't compare to, look at all the great historical artists.. most lived in poverty because the drive to be able to do create was more than the lure of easy money.
The second would be a 'designers eye'; this term is tossed around alot in every level of design and not soley used for the 'fashion industry' as some misconceptions would have you believe. A 'designers eye' is in everything that requires colour and some-sort of planning. Simply looking at a designer would give you some idea of the level he is at, yeah anyone can be program wizards and know every little trick in the book, create flawless work.. but if the level of creativity is not there, then you won't go any further; you have reached your peak. Looking at a designer and seeing if the colours he is wearing go together well, the styes of his clothes match, if he is up with the latest trends..etc because there is not only trends in the fashion world, there's trends in all design, things go out of favour.. things come in all the time, like over the past few years grunge/techo has flittered out and in, but there is on thing that will stay consistent, a designer with the 'eye' will always produce great work. Avant-garde you can also see in the way someone dresses, therefore you can tell that they would be likely to experiment in other ways, using design as an outlet for this.
Whilst trying not to over use the term 'designers eye', if you have it.. the possibilities are endless, you could create anything, you find simple things easier, colours, layouts, typography and general knowing what looks good & what doesn't. Having a designers eye is probably the main difference between great work and average work, the people that have it are the ones that win awards, the ones that get the recognition in the design world, the ones that in the end, make the real money and have a real job satisfaction.
To be continued...
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2 comments:
I agree with what you said there Andrew, apart from one small point: you can tell what level a designer is at by what clothes he wears?
Of all the designers I've met before I'd say you definitely can't tell what level a designer is at by the clothes they wear.
But if you want to go down that route, it's usually the most scruffy, uncoordinated guy out there that's the best designer.
Yeah, I can see what you mean from how I worded what I was trying to say, I don't think I accurately protrayed my true opinion around that bit of the subject.
I've been reading top end magazines, for years like grafik & eye. Alot of the time you can't really tell a designers worth because of the way they dress. But when it comes to the top ends of designers, the ones who get proper recognition world wide, I've found that dress wise, they are quite fashionable and definately stay in trends/create their own.
The scruffy uncoordinated ones are probably the best technitions, but when it comes to pure inspiration of design and colours, I stand by the statement above.
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