When we need to design something, from a simple flyer to a full website, we have an enormous range of options. A casual browse of the web reveals endless ‘template’ solutions, bargain priced business card design, and website design & hosting packages. It’s certainly all out there, so what’s the point of hiring an actual design agency?
Firstly, we need to consider what design actually is, and, contrary to casual opinion, it certainly isn’t a kind of art. Because so much of design is a visual experience, people understandably tend to judge it as they would judge traditional art; more by their aesthetic preference than by its functionality. In reality this balance is wrong – with design, function should always be the main consideration.
Whereas art exists for its own sake, and the audience may take from it what they will, design is almost the polar opposite; it has a fixed purpose – desired audience reaction is pre-determined, and without this reaction, the design has failed. For example, it may sound obvious, but many people will choose a colour in their design simply because they like it. To the audience viewing the finished design, the client’s colour preferences mean nothing, but that selected colour will still be having its effect on them.
If I were given a collection of surgical equipment, would I become able to perform an operation on a patient? Of course not, and yet, an odd side effect of the design world’s move to digital storage has been the idea that simply by owning an Apple Mac, one becomes a designer. This is, of course, nonsense. The computer is merely part of a toolkit – it is the user who does the work, and the user still needs the relevant skills to create an effective design. Even an artistic person with a ‘good eye’ won’t fit the bill.
Even those final, aesthetic considerations themselves involve far more than being visually pleasing to the client. Letterforms, for instance, project a tone of voice to the audience, not to mention historical & contextual associations. Colour, scale, relative proportions & positions, materials, imagery, and even ‘style’ itself all project meaning to the audience – meaning which is understood, selected and used with intent by a good designer.
Visual psychology, history, context, media, anthropology, intellectual baggage, social conventions, changing political attitudes, knowledge of the subject and audience are all required, and must be deployed within the constraints of a budget and a deadline. Good designers never switch off; they are always absorbing new ideas, new techniques and new information. Design communication is their passion.
Lastly, it’s worth noting that, the proliferation of template solutions means that huge numbers of designs look and feel very similar, which, ironically, makes quality, considered design by people who understand and care more important than ever.