Design as conversation

Design is universal. It can speak to virtually any audience through signs, markings, icons, color, shapes…the list goes on and on. Design bridges the gap between the product, the creators, and the audience. Once the audience sees the design and the product, the conversation begins between designer and viewer or consumer. The only way for design to grow and evolve throughout time, for trends to form and die out, is for design to be exposed to the world. Once a design is out there, feedback can be exchanged, and design can change. Design is not just a process for designers. It is a process for everyone. Design needs to be tossed out there for people to see and react to, and that is how design can change and evolve over time, between the audience and the designer. Like a conversation, it is multidirectional and one feeds off the other. Design is a way people communicate ideas, like how talking between two people is a good way of communicating thoughts.

Lady Gaga and Yoko maintain an interesting conversation in their performance of Yoko Ono’s “The Sun is Down.” It represents the acceptance of one another’s influence in society despite the generational difference, and the conversation between past and present. Like Yoko Ono and Lady Gaga’s conversation, art and design speak to each other and influence the flow of what is to come in the future.

Recently, Gap redesigned its logo that has been around for more than twenty years into a more modern Helvetica sans-serif typeface. Instead of keeping their new design, they retracted it because of the sea of criticisms it received. Now, Gap is using a more interactive approach to finding the right design: a crowd-sourcing project. Gap wants to see “other ideas” from the public. On this website, http://www.idsgn.org/posts/gap-turns-to-crowdsourcing/, you can see a more in-depth article about Gap’s logo.

Gap’s “conversation” with the public demonstrates a process in design: communication of a logo to an audience, the audience’s response, and process of changing a logo to suite the desires of the audience.