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Design by Committee

17/10/2011

5 Comments

 
Picture this. A large, cool and comfortable room. A group of men sitting around a conference table. Everyone is at least 50 years, or older. Most of them are academics, or have worked in universities, often in administrative levels, most of their lives. They have requested 3 young designers to come and 'share their expertise' with them. A quick summary below --
The task at hand: Designing the university certificates. 
The design tools: A projector, and a university employee with a laptop.
The design solution (as desired by them): Anything that looks 'good'. 
Definition of good: Widely debatable. 

As we sat at that table (yes it was two friends/colleagues and me at that table), we very rapidly realized the blokes in front of us don't really know or understand what design is. We can't blame them for that. After all, design is still shrouded in mystery for most folks. Putting it mildly, they did't really have a clue, and they haven't the foggiest idea of what we can do for them. We were regarded by some with suspicion, and by some with relief. 

Initially, it seemed as if they wanted us to guide the man working on the laptop, as he typed in the various nuggets of information that would appear on the certificate. We could all see what he did on the projection screen. The gentlemen were constantly giving him advice, designerly and otherwise, but mostly designerly. 

"Use Algerian font, it's the best.", "Should the logo come on top, or should the university name come first?", "Should we have English or Hindi first?", "University naam curve pe dal (place the university name in a curve)", and many, many more such golden words of wisdom was freely shared. It was both hilarious and tragic at the same time, besides being mildly bizarre. Why were we designers called? To be witness to the 'design by committee' process perhaps, and give it our stamp of approval. At any rate, it proved very hard to explain to some of the gentlemen there what design was, and how it happened. It ideally did not happen in an hour, on a projection screen, with everyone giving their opinion on it. Most of the time we just sat quiet. This caused one of them to laughingly say,"They are not revealing their trade secrets." Yes, if by trade secrets he meant we don't design by popular vote, he was right. Another gentleman, who was more understanding conceded, "No they will do it on their own, when we give them the content."  

This university logo was a strange, convoluted being. It was a product of some quick Google searches, Illustrator live-trace option, and ad-hoc colour selection. When we asked who the designer was, there was no clear answer besides, "Ermmm..". There was no question of re-designing this poor logo, yet, "Do something so that it looks nice." Basically, apply a Band-Aid on it when it actually needs major surgery, or complete reconstruction. 

There are numerous people, organizations, institutes, and bodies like this, where design is a mysterious word. Or design is simply beautification. How does one explain design to someone, who doesn't have a clue as to what design is? How does one explain its value, its process, its role and importance? How can you tell someone that design is more that just its tools? Needless to say, we didn't get into it then and there. 
5 Comments
Tiv link
14/11/2011 08:04:28 pm

and if I guess correctly, did they offer peanuts in return? I've had similar experiences in apparel and accessories where they want x fabric in y colour in z (some famous brand) style, and they just want you to make it. for peanuts. ugh.

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armeen kapadia link
14/11/2011 08:13:05 pm

We didn't even get to the stage of discussing money :) The longer we sat there, the more apparent it was that it wouldn't really work out.

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Abhijith link
14/11/2011 10:54:33 pm

Good read, as always.
It is possible I am contradicting my past self, but oftentimes, the 'us-and-them' dichotomy is more reason for concern than that of understanding design. And for the peanuts, what do you think of profit sharing models?

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armeen kapadia link
15/11/2011 04:27:01 pm

Hi Abhijith. This wasn't really a 'us-and-them' dichotomy, it was more like it was really hard to get them to even listen, forget understand the role of design there. Profit sharing models can work well, if planned properly.

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hari
21/3/2012 04:28:28 am

Well said.. As they were all old school, its very hard to make them understand the design language. Probably we need to lower our level to their's and try to make em listen at least (guess sometimes worth the effort if design matters).

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