Much Ado About Noticing

Note: This is Part 28 of the Ruminations for Aspiring Designers series.

Can you live through a day without design?

Everything in your life was designed by someone. Look at the chair you sit in, the software you use or the organization you work for: they were all made by other people. The boundaries of nations on maps and the names of the towns you’ve lived in were all chosen by people, too. Except for the natural world, if you look at everything you have ever loved, hated, used or purchased (and even the money you used to pay for it), it was all designed and made by human beings. Designers made hundreds of decisions over weeks, months or years to create these things in your life. They had many possible choices, but you only get to experience their final decisions, for better or for worse.

Scott Berkun, How Design Makes the World

You might argue that, a lot of daily things we do is not designing, but simply planning. But to design is indeed to plan and perhaps more.

In most cases, we simply take design for granted.

More specifically, we take good design for granted.

As the saying goes, we only notice design when it’s gone obviously bad. We don’t even notice design when it’s gone unethically, manipulatively or deceptively bad.

To designers, it’s critical to learn to take notice of design.

The only problem is that you also have to take notice beyond design. As I briefly pointed out previously, sometimes design is merely a functional facade that hides, intentionally or not, what’s behind it – power, politics, greed, aspiration or love.

But if being a designer means we have to take notice of so many things, wouldn’t it be distracting or even overwhelming? How could anyone handle that?

Firstly, one step at a time. It’s the habit of taking notice that makes it easy and almost effortless. Taking notice is almost the same as taking notes or being creative – it’s the habit that makes all the difference.

Secondly, nurture your curiosity. You need to be curious enough to channel the energy you need to articulate design and everything behind it. It’s just so easy to not bother, but as Kevin Kelly puts it succinctly:

For a great payoff, be especially curious about the things you are not interested in.

Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice For Living

And lastly, you can’t just do it at work. If designing is something you only like to do at work, then perhaps being a designer is indeed hard to you.

What have you been noticing lately?

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