Democratization of Design

After four years of education at Columbia, I've heard the term 'democratization of design' maybe hundreds of times, yet I'm still unsure of how I feel about it.

For sure, there is a lot of bad design out in the world. A recent trip to the suburbs to help a friend sort her church's rummage sale reinforced that- there are a lot of things out there, that look awful, don't last, or were never anything special, that were just made and produced as quickly as possible for the largest profits possible. And this is a prevalent theme in design for decades, some crap is new, some crap is 20, 40, or 80 years old. For the most part, especially with the older items, these poorly designed items were designed by trained designers.

On the other hand, having computer programs widely available that do all of the things that a designer used to need special training for can allow some talented designers who haven't been to design school for whatever reason to get their names out there (ie, Ivan Brunetti). It also allows everyone the ability to think that they are a designer, regardless of how their work looks. A couple summers ago, I was interning for a company (to be unnamed) and I was placed for a few weeks in the department that the designer's office was located in, and after finding out that I was a design student, she bemoaned the fact to me that she never had anything to do anymore now that people could just slap clip art onto their flier or what have you. This didn't make it any prettier than it would have been without the clip art, and much less lovely than if they had just asked her to spend a couple minutes designing the flier.

Overall, I think the idea that computers allow anyone to be a 'designer' will have a more negative than positive impact on design culture, but, if it can allow someone with legitimate talent but no money for art school to create some good work, then they should have that option open to them. As the common sports parable goes, you're not really winning if you know the best competition can't compete. And for that very small group of people who will take a group of computer programs and start creating incredible work, I think the opportunity should be there. Rather than whining about how design tools are available to everyone, perhaps designers should become more proactive about teaching the general public about good design and the importance of having a good designer.