The difference between art and design
About a week back, in the post on Micromanagement, I was pointing out that design, unlike art, isn’t about the designer expressing him/herself through visual elements, but about conveying a specific message to the specific audience with the clear purpose to motivate a specific action.
A few years back John O’Nolan, wrote an interesting article covering a few differences between art and design.
“Perhaps the most fundamental difference between art and design that we can all agree on is their purposes.
Typically, the process of creating a work of art starts with nothing, a blank canvas. A work of art stems from a view or opinion or feeling that the artist holds within him or herself.
They create the art to share that feeling with others, to allow the viewers to relate to it, learn from it or be inspired by it.
The most renowned (and successful) works of art today are those that establish the strongest emotional bond between the artist and their audience.
By contrast, when a designer sets out to create a new piece, they almost always have a fixed starting point, whether a message, an image, an idea or an action.
The designer’s job isn’t to invent something new, but to communicate something that already exists, for a purpose.
That purpose is almost always to motivate the audience to do something: buy a product, use a service, visit a location, learn certain information. The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.”
You can read the full article here.
And as a bonus John made some really cool wallpapers on the same theme. You can download them here.
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