Short Essays on Design

When reading the first short story titled, “How to Become Famous” the thought dawned on me, who really decides who is famous and who is not? Why is society’s goal in life to become famous? Why do humans crave to be recognized by others and told they are doing good work? Why do we agree with one person’s thoughts that something is great work? We all strive to become famous but do we even know what that means? I really enjoyed this short essay because it showed us that when we design if we are striving to become famous then we are in the wrong profession. If you need an award or a title of being famous to seal that you do good work then you are limiting your ability to create amazing things. We cannot strive to be famous because then you are striving to cater your work to one mind when there are a million other minds out there.

I loved the idea that one should design the most they can possibly design. Even if one only receives three major projects a year, they should continue to work for many other clients for free. One might shy away from this work because they are not getting paid, but we do not realize that by not getting paid it liberates us from the restraints that are brought on by paid projects. When you take on other projects, you have the ability to learn and try new things that you may have not tried otherwise. This is an amazing point that I will always remember.

I also choose to read, “Information design and the Placebo Effect.” This was a very interesting short essay. I found the information within it to be utterly true, and I have never thought to think about those things. The author talks about how when one pushes the door close button on an elevator, do the doors close because the button was pushed or is the button just there to ease overly anxious people? I laughed when I read this because it is true. When one hits the door close button the doors do not immediately close which leads one to wonder if the button really does anything at all? Do we have things in life that are just put in place to help ease our anxiety so we think they work but they really do not.

I found the title to be interesting to this short story. Information design is design that is supposed to portray information to the user. If one designs a bunch of elevator buttons then they add a close door button for the user to push when they want the doors to close. The button panel is the information that is displayed. If there is a placebo then the close door button would be it. The placebo is a sugar pill used to see if the user thinks it is working when it really is nothing. If the close door button is really a placebo and does not work then we have all fallen for this effect. This would show that users just need something to do that they think will work in order to ease there anxiety. A designer can use this information by realizing if you trick the user to think something is happening even though it is not, then your user will become happier and have less anxiety.

Finally I read “I Hate ITC Garamond” and couldn’t believe that someone hated a typeface as much as this author. I am someone who didn’t notice typefaces until this class. After learning about them I now catch myself noticing typefaces more. I had no idea that there are people in the world who despise certain typefaces. This was eye opening as a designer to realize that a designer needs to think about what typefaces people hate before designing something. This article showed me that I can make brilliant work but if I use the wrong typeface I can turn many people off from my work.