Designers Are Meant to Be Loved, Not Understood

Posted on Jul 01, 2014

'Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Design is knowing which ones to keep.'—Scott Adams

Designers are meant to be loved, not understood. I stumbled across this quote on the Illustrations & Posters section on Pinterest, which was literally my creative respite before Seagull.

I do not know how much truth this statement holds, yet being a designer or any other creative person is a daunting task because you have to put yourself out there. I believe each design is a reflection of some part of your personality, yet the medium you choose to reflect it in is not always easy because sometimes you simply do not know how. You've tried picking up a paintbrush but you can never get the strokes right, the eye you tried to sketch looks like a deformed apple, sometimes you resort to the 26 letters but even they seem inadequate to express what you truly feel. Thankfully I came across this wonderful little design course at Seagull which was precisely what I needed to get out of this rut.

Designers are complex, many-layered species, but then the same can be said for every other person. Some choose to express what they feel simply because they cannot contain it inside and they believe that there is so much to share and so much to observe. Not for approval, or even recognition, but with a belief that somebody out there wished that they could’ve put together these elements that reflect their thoughts to a T and get a sense of belongingness in knowing that someone else feels the exact same way. Everybody wants to feel connected,

My design classes at Seagull began with the basic know-hows, picking a machine, learning how to turn it on, manoeuvering around the Mac, which is a dream to operate as I’m cursing my rickety keyboard as I type. After a couple of introductory lessons we were asked to design a children’s book cover on weather. This led me to realize that the most exciting part about design is that given the same odd shapes and tools we all created extremely different covers that exuded each of our personalities. Going through the various book covers designed by Sunandini Ma’am at the end of the class is a dream and it is exciting to realize that sometimes a well-thought-out design can be quite simple to put together. The entire atmosphere of the school is bubbling with creativity and the ideas keep brimming to the top of my head until I’m compelled to draw it, morph it, cut it, layer it or use any other tool to watch it manifest in front of me. Even though I am a non-morning person, I look forward to going to class every day, because there are always some new designs to explore and create. In fact designing is not the only thing I’ve experimented with so far for I have my trials with the coffee—determining the right amount of sugar and milk for my palate still poses a challenge I am yet to surpass.

Before Seagull, I’ve always browsed through illustrations online and pinned some 3000 odd pins that made me wish that I could somehow pour every single creative energy I had bursting out at random moments onto a canvas. But I never knew how. Now I’m beginning to look at designs differently. Instead of curating pieces and wishing I could create something that I could call my own, I can now play with text and images and colours in a million ways that could inspire someone else out there to start creating something beautiful that could change the way one person thinks, if not the world.

Also, now, I am silently judging your font choice.

Unnati Marda