Erin Malone points to Communication Arts: “Us Versus Them” by Nancy Nowacek which makes some good points about the ‘D’ word, but gets a little peevish for my tastes when it starts discussing web design e.g. “Many were liberal arts majors who, for lack of a more immediate career, bought a computer and mastered 3-D buttons and drop shadows.”
This is a nice quote from the article:
“Design is both problem seeking and problem solving”
Erin Malone’s post discussing the piece chimed with me. She talks about how a lot of people don’t like describing themselves as graphic designers anymore because of the negative connotation created by the excesses and attitudes asscoaited with it.
“I am an Information Architect. I am a Graphic Designer. I use my skills and experience across multiple mediums and have great concern for choosing the appropriate solutions for the medium. There shouldn’t be an Us vs. Them. We are Us. We are Them. There are a lot of people I know who feel the same way.”
I’m not a ‘trained graphic designer, I’m not ‘trained’ in information/library science. I spent 5/6 years in architectural college studying ‘problem seeking and problem solving’.
My job title is ‘information architect’ mainly because the people I work with feel more comfortable calling me that, but over the last 6 months here, myself and others have spent a lot of energy on advocating processes and approaches from various design disciplines to our colleagues.
Design has moved from being something that happens late in the process – putting “lipstick on gorillas” to something integral to each project, program and person in the business.
I was in a meeting with all of the senior managers of the business yesterday and the most senior person there said “we’ve got to show others [parts of the BBC as a whole] how to get the problem clear, before they start thinking of solutions”. A fantastic moment. It became clear that nearly everyone I work with is getting into a ‘design thinking’ mentality.
We’ve started to suceed in showing the business value of design, design as problem seeking and problem solving.
I feel cool with saying I’m a designer again.
Happy Holidays.
Petafloptimism 
