Design in the perfect world of the classroom is often a far cry from what takes place in the studio, and vice versa. In an article for Core77, my colleague at frog, Jon Kolko, reflects on the lessons he's learned across academia and industry alike, and he is demystifying some of the myths about design:
"I've always viewed my present employer, frog design, as one of the top design consultancies in the world; since I flipped through Form Follows Emotion in 1999, I've imagined a class distinction between the "top tier" firms and the rest of the chaff. Somehow, this assumption had led me to picture a firm full of "designers"—Barcelona chairs, horn rim glasses, and the high maintenance of a Rock and Roll personality. In fact, the reality of working at a world-class consultancy is that the business is a business, the people are generally good at what they do, and the designer-as-brand-personality is humbly missing. Creative problem solving requires a strange dichotomy of ego and humility, and an equally strange gauge of appropriateness. Our studio is full of people who are generally happy, slightly sarcastic, and vividly aware of the role Design plays in life; rather than hiding behind white leather suits and trumpeting slogans to change the world, it appears that design consultants actually do design work.
The more I read interviews with these rock star designers, the more I realize how out of touch with real design problems these people are. Approaching design solely as style and brand simply perpetuates the notion of Design as transparent and shallow, and if these people continue to serve as the mouthpieces for our industry, our industry will continue to simultaneously lose the business-centered respect and credibility it so urgently needs, and to ignore the social and cultural problems it so direly needs to solve."
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