What does it mean to me to be a designer?

What does it mean to me to be a designer?

This is one of the most difficult thing that I have ever had to write as I find it very difficult to express. When I started writing this, I decided to Google “definitions of a designer”. From this I found many definitions of what a designer is, which I found to differ greatly from different disciples. For me, coming from a product design background, a quote from the Design Institute of Australia that I related greatly to was the following
“A designer is a business professional who develops solutions to commercial needs that require the balancing of technical, commercial, human and aesthetic requirements.”
But on closer though, this quote is lacking something vital, the user!

Then I decided to examine ‘who is the designer’ and ‘what is the distinguishable factors that makes someone a designer’. Is the programmer, who is given a list of steps that the company want to include in a device designing? Is the graphic designer, who is told by the customer what colour and shape they want their logo designing? Is the toolmaker, who is given a AutoCAD drawing by the product designer to make designing? Is the craftsman who is making pottery designing? Is the user designing when the decide what features to use in the system or product or when the modify their system e.g. change the skin on their phone, add a youtube clip to their Facebook page?

During this month a article was written in Design Reviver “So you call yourself a Designer?” link here , where the author discusses how some people call themselves a designer because they have a computer, have Adobe Photoshop and they had some spare time to learn and how this is far from what we needed an what is a designer. He speaks about a designer a being a very complex and knowledgeable person who has “ critical thinking skills, understanding of design principals, knowledge of grid systems, typography and much more.” He speaks about the importance of critical thinking as being fundamental in a designer so a to develop design that has meaning rather than just decoration.

So from this inspirational article I started thinking about what I personally means to me to be a designer. And to be honest I really not exactly sure! With every major experience, I change my view on what a it means to me to be a designer.

When I was a young girl, I was encouraged to paint and draw as my family saw that I had a talent in that area. I didn’t particularly enjoy the method I was being taught, which was sit down, put a bowl of fruit in front of me and start drawing or painting. What I did enjoy was making and fixing things around the house and taking things apart to see how they worked. What it meant for me to be a designer at that age was merge artistic and mechanical skills to produce a beautiful design.
I then went to college and studied product design and technology, which focused on aesthetic design, ergonomics, model-making, usability, material science and manufacturing design. I highly enjoyed projects which focused on aesthetic design, ergonomics and usability. At the end of my undergraduate education, what it meant for me to be a designer was to have the ability to blend form with function so as to create beautiful products that help people in their everyday lives.
When I finished my undergraduate course, I worked as a product, packaging and graphic designer in a in-house product design firm in Shannon in Co. Clare. Here I worked for 18 months in a company that designed, manufactures and packaged low cost household products. The company was in formation for only a few years so money was tight so pressure was on to design things as quick as possible. I was the only designer in the company for the majority of the time, with an accountant and two toolmakers being my other work colleges. Sometimes this caused a few problems during some of the design phases as it was sometimes difficult to illustrate the value of spending time and money on improving the aesthetics and understanding of the user. For me during that stage of my life, what it meant to be a designer was to be a business professional who develops a marketable solution that attracts the customer to purchase.
And now, as a masters student in Interactive Media, where we focus greatly on understand the user and capturing the best experience in a design, for me now, to be a designers means that I make an impact on lives, on communities and on individuals. A designer gives back to the everyday person, they see the possibilities where none were seen before. A designer emphasises, listens and understands.