Sculpture at Parris Island Marine Recruit Depot, North Carolina

Memorial Day is the U.S. holiday that for many marks the beginning of summer. School is ending for the season and it’s time to play. For me, it’s a day to think of heroes, courage and honor, and to remember that people gave up their lives so that we can play in our summer seasons.

One of my heroes is my daughter, now a Marine sergeant, who graduated boot camp several years ago at Parris Island, NC. When I went to her graduation I saw a sculpted replica of the Pulitzer-winning photograph by AP photographer, Joe Rosenthal. His image of the American flag being raised atop Mt. Suribachi in 1945 quickly became an icon. Not only is it part of the pride of the United States Marine Corps, but it represents the pride of this nation—our heritage, hopes and future; our values and character. Rosenthal shot many other photos during his career, but out of all his work, this one is most remembered.

Do you know of Thomas E. Franklin? He, too, shot a world-famous photograph of another American flag being raised—this time over American soil by a trio of New York City firefighters on September 11, 2001.

There’s something about the raising of a banner by heroes that attracts attention. And it’s not just the raising of the banner, but its endurance, and the valor of the heroes and the meaning behind it and where it’s raised and why. It’s the significance of what a banner represents that stirs the heart and wakens the imagination; that compels heroes to lift it high in the midst of a battle.

We follow banners. They stir us to action. They make us proud. They identify us.

Practically every business, organization and government has a banner. These are raised in the form of logos, motifs, icons and flags. We wear them and put them on our car bumpers and on signs and travel mugs. Every banner represents something—an identity, a set of values, a reputation, a history. Every banner has a loyal following.

You might think that the first thing I deal with in designing a client’s “banner” is the aesthetics—how it looks. But no. I look at the client’s identity: the values, principles and reputation they intend to raise over the melee of marketing messages in the culture. What will stir the hearts of the people the client is trying to reach? What will endure? Then, how to represent that. What heroes will carry it? How will my client be remembered?

A logo is no more a mere graphic than the American flag is simply a piece of fabric. There is so much more involved. What does your logo mean to you? What does it mean to your employees and your customers? How do you want to be remembered? Are you heroically raising it in the midst of your battle? Are you persevering?

Joe Rosenthal and Thomas Franklin are not as memorable as the photos they created. I don’t expect to be as memorable as the designs I create. Your clients may not remember your name. But they will remember your banner if you raise it high. Go be a hero.

Empty space in a design is useful. Think of it in this way: If there was a room in your home where every inch of space was taken up by a piece of furniture, you would be unable to navigate through or use the room. Empty space between furniture is required for the room to be useful. This same concept applies in communication design.

Empty space, otherwise known as white space, is anything not filled by active content. It includes gutters between columns of text, the page margins that frame the design, the spaces between words and paragraphs and the intervals that separate elements from each other. White space streamlines the design and makes it more inviting.

White space serves physical, aesthetic and psychological purposes. Visually it separates information and increases overall legibility. Because it unclutters a page, the design becomes easier to navigate and requires less effort to understand. This increases reading speed.

Aesthetically, white space supplies crucial support to the composition and enables the design to communicate. Its simplicity complements complex areas. Emphasis is created when white space is used to frame important elements, leading the reader’s eye to important focal areas. White space helps balance and quiet the entire design and adds visual appeal.

Psychologically, we require white space for comfort’s sake. It helps us understand what we’re seeing because it separates information and helps create hierarchy. Without appropriate use of white space, one thing flows into another with no relief, ideas merge and the message becomes confusing. When that happens, communication ceases and the design fails in its purpose.

There is a time and place for visual clutter. When white space is reduced in favor of more content, the design conveys a sense of energy and excitement. Organized clutter is appropriate in many cases (the operative word here being organized). However, a design can be too busy, and we will actually describe it as being loud. No one likes to be shouted at, not even in visual terms. A design that lacks the relief of white space has too much going on in it and can be cacophonous and irritating.

Although considered empty, white space is not always void of content. Color, texture and images can function as white space, taking on a supporting role in the design and pointing to the active content.

Asking your designer to fill every inch of a layout with active content can mean your message may get lost in clutter. Instead, trust your designer to choose where and how much white space to use, and your message will be communicated.

There is a lot in common between art and design, but they’re not the same. At times, the lines between the two disciplines become blurred, but the distinctions remain and are important to understand. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, art and design were blended in beauty, purpose and craftsmanship. During that era, the two disciplines separated. Design remained practical and commercial while art for art’s sake allowed for the pursuit of creative expression as a singular goal and took off in another direction.

Despite their differences, we need to acknowledge what these two disciplines have in common:

• They’re both visual and belong to the broader category of visual art.
• They both incorporate the aesthetic principles.
• Practitioners in both fields need knowledge of history, past movements and current trends.
• Both are highly creative activities involving processes that require time, observation and thinking.

The dividing line between art and design is drawn by the purpose of each:

• Art allows for self-expression. The artist decides what he or she wants to evoke and works toward that end. It is self-satisfying.
  Design is communication and function in visual form, created for the general population or a segment of it. Design addresses stated needs and solves problems.
• Art can rely entirely on aesthetics alone, and artists embark on journeys of exploration and experimentation. Design marries aesthetics with function to achieve a purpose.
• Art is open to interpretation by the viewer.
  Design cannot be interpretive but must communicate specifically and clearly to its intended audience.
• Art is elitist, meaning that it is viewed in galleries and museums, exhibited away from the mainstream of everyday experience. One looks at art and may or may not have a significant experience.
  Design is seen and experienced by just about everyone in the course of a day. One uses design. Web sites, packaging, billboards, print advertising, newspaper layouts, fashion, signage, interior spaces, smart phone apps, products and appliances all have been designed for both visual appeal and practical use.
• Art exists for itself. It’s innovative, expressive and sometimes shocking.
  Design is practical and carefully crafted. It supports business, commerce, marketing, entertainment, journalism, communications and causes.
• Artists stand in front of their work and get to put their signatures on it in plain view. Designers stand behind their work and remain unknown for the most part.

Most people can name half a dozen artists off the top of their heads. Most cannot name half a dozen designers – with the possible exception of fashion designers. (Quickly, and without Googling or Binging – who created the CBS logo? Who designed the type face used in the London Underground signs?) Yet design carries far more weight and influence in our time and throughout history than fine art. Most people don’t make the connection that the bag of chips they’re consuming was designed by someone, or that it’s by design that cola and root beer products have different color schemes.

Design involves specific criteria, research and study, along with extreme creativity. Where an artist can begin with a blank canvas and creatively pursue a serendipitous route to an end result, a designer begins with a set of criterion and creates within specific boundaries all the way from concept through completion. Design is not decoration, and designers do not seek to express their own points of view but to accurately represent who or what they’re designing for. Design influences and persuades in the domain of popular culture. It is created for the masses and will always have a commercial purpose.

Why is it important to understand these differences? Simply because they’re not the same. We experience and value them differently. We treat artists and designers differently.

Art is something we go to see at the Getty Center or the Guggenheim, form opinions about and compartmentalize the experience as being uplifting or at least interesting. And then we go home. Art requires people to come to it, and its value lies in that people leave their everyday lives and go look and be inspired or shocked. Art is a getaway – a time for contemplation and being away from the ordinary.

Design’s value is in how it serves the community, the marketplace and the enterprises it represents in our commonplace, ordinary living. It comes to us daily at the grocery store, along roads, in books, at work, at play, when dining out, when doing our taxes. Everyday we use a plethora of things that were designed.

There are artists who design and designers who create art. If we attempt to say that one discipline is better than the other, keep in mind that they’re both necessary and worthy. There is a clear line between the two. The point is that we don’t confuse them, but value each one in its own right. Clients should not treat their designers as if they were artists, nor should artists be required to adhere to particular constraints.

When was the last time you went to an art exhibition? How have you experienced design today?

The beginning of a new year is somewhat like a blank canvas in that there’s a sense of being able to start fresh, to do something new, to begin again and create from scratch. It is probably the most creative time of the year for many as they begin to re-think their lives and imagine themselves different than they are… as they set goals and resolutions to improve.

Re-thinking and imagining something different involves change – breaking away from current reality and practices to see and do things differently. Change is basic to creativity; when you bring something into being that wasn’t there before it changes things.

Creative thinking – visionary thinking – requires us to cease from thinking as we always have. This is neither automatic nor easy because we automatically default to doing that which requires the least amount of effort. It requires effort to change our thinking and let go of previously-held ideas, attitudes and paradigms, and then accept being uncomfortable during our transition to the new way.

Graphic design represents ideas and values. A design is not in itself the idea, but the expression of it. Design points to something greater than itself. In most cases design serves as an ambassador, not as the self-expression of the designer, but as the expression of a business or organization to its audience. The value of a design is in how and what it communicates.

If your business or organization is a worthy enterprise, shouldn’t it be represented by something that is equally worthy?

If you were to choose an ambassador to represent your interests to the world, wouldn’t it behoove you to choose someone who will represent you accurately and deliver your message clearly; someone who cares how you’re presented and how people respond to you? You’re not going to simply drive by and pick someone off the street corner to do that. You’re going to carefully select from qualified candidates.

If your design assets represent your interests, why wouldn’t you want them to be as carefully chosen?

If a business is worth establishing and customers are worth pursuing, why not make the appropriate investment? You should be concerned that your graphic assets are serving your interests and representing your enterprise in the best way possible. A worthy enterprise deserves the investment in and the cost of a worthy ambassador.

This is an excellent discussion of the power and influence of visual imagery – design and illustration – to change ways of thinking, morals and systems for good or for bad. No matter what your persuasion, you need to understand what’s going on. As you view this, consider how you’ve been influenced.

Video from PJTV, a division of PajamasMedia.

Toward the end of my design fundamentals course I generally ask my students how they, having gone through the process of learning design principles and applying them to a variety of projects, would define design. Here are the responses from several who recently completed the course:

Design is the process of externalizing many possible solutions to a problem and making choices regarding which solutions are likely to be most appropriate to the future contexts of the problem -Matthew T.

[Design is] the creation, invention or materialization of an idea or thought into a visual and/or tactile and/or audial presence to be shared with others, either for an end-goal like persuading into action or thought-provocation or for pure enjoyment (which sometimes still leads to the aforementioned end-goals). –Erika R.

If I was giving a talk about design I would probably define it as a way of communication. The planning and execution of a project that says what I am trying to say and has a start to finish. –Amy M.

Design is a visual or graphic means to communicate an idea or message, toward a particular goal or outcome. While there is a very critical aesthetic element to design, the function has to be considered first and foremost. I have to first ask (and really take into consideration) very practical and fundamental questions, like who is the target audience and what is the purpose. Otherwise, if I always designed based on my own personal taste or preference, all my designs would probably come out with a very similar style and they wouldn’t as effectively convey the idea or message or achieve the desired goal. -Naomi B.

Design is the creative and artistic solution to an overall problem or goal through the means of texts and graphics. –Kathryn V.

How do you define design?

It’s red. It’s leather. It’s about two inches thick on its best days. It has rings. It is too big to fit in my pocket.

I am describing my daybook: my planning/organizing/time management companion. It’s a throwback to the 1980s when planning systems first became popular, and Filofax and Franklin were the top-of-mind options. I formed my planning habit of keeping my contacts, to-dos, appointments, ideas, and doodles all in one place within easy reach back then.

For me, there’s something luscious about the feel and sound of paper; how my pen or pencil grabs the surface and creates a tangible drag as I write. Then there’s the physical action of flipping pages, which to me is much more interactive than scrolling over a digital screen. I can add pages or remove them, tear or fold them and use both sides of the surface.

I replace the filler set every year but have used the same binder. This year I designed my own filler pages. I bind up prior years and archive them in boxes. Occasionally I go back through them. Events and people long-forgotten come to my recall. I have a record of things accomplished and things left undone. I can easily see my history.

My tradition of keeping a daily record and planning my days ahead of time was learned from my parents. My mother kept a calendar and my dad kept a journal. Bits and pieces of lives that I knew well were handed down to me on paper. Those recorded comings and goings remind me of the people I came from, as I suppose my daybooks and sketchbooks will remind my progeny in the same way.

I have an iPhone and use the Evernote, FCTasks and Calendar apps regularly as back-up to the more creatively-contrived and personable daybook. To jot something down is quicker for me than keying it in on a touch screen, and I commit fewer typos in the process.

In thinking about the archival issues, I suppose that with our technology few people really consider how they will leave their legacy, or even if they think about it at all. What do they have to hand down that is personal and stable enough to last for years and years? With technology renewing and upgrading constantly and rapidly, access to older technologies disappears. Paper, at least for now, is the timeless and more tangible option.

House Republicans' chart depicting Democrats' plan for government-run health care.

Setting aside that fact that many think the Dems’ proposed national healthcare plan is a total nightmare, the GOP chart is no sweet dream from a design standpoint.

Where do we begin? If information hierarchy is necessary to provide a “front door” into the design, the first thing we note is that there is no front door – no “first read”. As we look at this thing, where do we start? We could begin anywhere, and spend hours hopping from point to point in the design trying to decide where to go next. There’s no single element that stands up and cries out, “Here! Come this way. Follow me.” In fact, we are forced to hunt even for the chart’s title.

Every element in the layout and the amount of space in between are approximately the same size. This amount of similarity creates monotony across the visual surface. The chart is relegated to mere pattern rather than operating as a purveyor of information. It has no focal point.

The colors used are base level, highly saturated and create legibility problems for the textual content inside each box, oval or circle.

There is no exit point. Once we’ve made some sort of entry into the layout we’re stuck. We can’t get out. We’re either going to keep going around and around or become incredibly tired or crazy from our frantic maneuverings through all that clutter. When we finally extricate ourselves out of sheer exhaustion and make a swift getaway we have gained no greater understanding of what’s being communicated than when we first entered the design space.

The single redeeming element is the gray background, which sits quietly behind all the noisy chatter of the brighter elements.

The Democrats responded to the Republicans with a simpler, “questionable” chart which is less cluttered (meaning, it has a bit more white space) and takes a stab at establishing hierarchy, but communicates little:

Democrats' health chart opus

Compare these charts to another, created by the folks at The New Republic which more elegantly describes the current state of health care in the United States. It, by the way, has a front door (note the red burst at top left with the small word, you.) That’s where you enter and you know exactly where to go next. You’re given clear and distinct visual choices. This is good design: it is both aesthetically pleasing and communicates well:

The New Republic's opus applies aesthetic principles to make sense of the current US healthcare system.

From a design standpoint, if good design is our plumb line, the Republicans’ chart appears to fail. Except that it doesn’t. It actually accomplishes its purpose quite successfully in its ugly confusion. The chart is meant to be confusing, monotonous, difficult, illegible and unfriendly. Its purpose is to communicate the confusion, monotony, difficulty and inhospitality of the proposed healthcare plan its describing, and it achieves its purpose very well. It is a worthy example of what not to do if you want to create good design, and also of how some ideas are best communicated by breaking the rules of good design.

Those who track and analyze cultural trends generally agree that our culture has become design-driven. It’s no longer based on business or technology but on design. We consumers generally assess the value of a product or idea based on post-modern criteria: its design, its visual appeal, how we experience it, how we feel about it. Design has overtaken business and technology as the impetus for consumption and economic growth. For example, chewing gum products are packaged to look good when sitting next to a Blackberry or iPhone. This, of course will increase their appeal and resulting sales.

Because we are design-driven, there is ample opportunity for innovation and new ideas to flourish when presented to the public in desirable “packaging”. Thus we judge a book by its cover and the contents inside the box by the graphics on the box. Designers develop these visual assets, packaging and experiences to, in essence, present ideas. Any idea presented in an elegant, exciting “package” generally achieves greater acceptance than one that isn’t. A good idea offered in a cheesy “box” will be passed over in favor of a bad idea presented in a thoughtful, aesthetically-sound container. Design persuades us to accept something based on its packaging or graphic environment.

A designer can take any idea – whether authentic or not – create an appealing graphic environment for it, provide a positive user experience, and it doesn’t matter if the idea is authentic or not. It matters only if it makes the user authentically feel good. As long as the design appeals, the idea it presents will gain acceptance, even if unprovable or dangerous.

Thus, surrounded by aesthetically-sound design, any idea can be accepted as valid. There is danger in this. Not every idea is valid or even worth consideration. Not every idea is “true”.

In our post-modern, design-driven culture, form has taken priority over content and style rules over substance. Post-moderns gauge authenticity based on experience rather than proof. It doesn’t matter if something is verifiable or not, as long as we feel good about it, as long as it makes us popular, provides a sense of community and belonging, or is compatible with our desire for absolute freedom. If it accomplishes any of those things, it must be authentic. If it is presented as being authentic, it will be considered as such even when proven otherwise.

Does it matter if we create excellent design to package a lie? Does it matter if we might be helping to spread inaccuracy and fabrication? Does anyone care, as long as something looks good?