For me, success in design is creating something that clearly relays the message it is meant to relay, and in an interesting way. When designing, I need to think about principles, typography, gestalt… all that. I want to use those as tools to come up with something that is easy to understand and is exciting for the viewer. It’s important to have creative elements in design, but there needs to be order and information as well. I think good, successful design is a combination of that creativity and order.

            There is so much about design that I don’t know! So there is a lot I would like to learn more about. I would really love to master the software that helps with design. There are so many shortcuts and different functions that the softwares can do that I just don’t remember or know. I feel like I have ideas, but because I’m limited in my ability with software, I don’t think my designs turn out as good as they could.  Moving past software though, with actually thinking of design ideas, I would love to learn more about how to use figure/ground relationships and gestalt masterfully in my work. How do I make a word and object relate or connect in an interesting way?

            I thought Frank Chimero’s lecture was very interesting and something I hadn’t thought about before. He seemed a little dramatic at some points, and at first when he started speaking, I was wondering where he was going. He kept talking about all the problems designers face and their feelings of not being appreciated. Then he was talking about logic and the logic machine. He commented that designers have more data than ever, but he feels like he has even less control. I didn’t quite understand this because I thought if there is more data that tells you what people like, wouldn’t that be helpful? I was wondering how all of this was going to make sense together. But he then started speaking about how Aristotle said there was more than just the idea that things only work in the domain of truth- things can be other than what they are. Thinking about this, I agree. A word, place, event… can represent something other than what it would logically seem to be. In design, we need to think outside the box- think past logic, and just be plain creative.

            Chimero continued, talking about how people are illogical, and logic breaks when designers work with people. I think this is true. Logic is good, but convictions, emotions, and feelings are sometimes very illogical. Because people have all of these illogical facets, designers need to try to reach and touch into these facets, meaning they need to go past the logic. They need to do what Chimero describes as embracing paradox-being creative. I loved his idea of designing and reaching people through storying! I love stories and making up stories about people I see, pictures I see… and I do agree that stories can lead, or as Chimero talked about seduce, people into opening up their eyes to an issue or advertisement, because they relate that with something personal that’s given in the design.

            Chimero started explaining his design nobility pyramid with the job of persuading, informing, and delighting people with our graphic design work. Persuading and informing is good and should be done through design, but really, designers need to strive for delighting their client, audience… With this delight those viewing the design will gain an openness to the message given through the work. Chimero stated “In our efforts to perform better, the work becomes less thoughtful and delightful.” I totally agree and now understand what Chimero meant by having so much data but feeling helpless. The more we try to please everyone and do exactly what we think they’ll want, the less creative juices we allow to flow. A good designer needs to be real and make real, relatable designs that surprise, delight, and act as gifts. This means we need to care about what we do and who we do it for, as Chimero suggests. Without that, our design will be nothing more than following rules.