Design Should Communicate, Not Just Problem Solve
Because not everything is a problem to be solved.
I started my design career in what most call graphic design. I’ve never been much for that term for a lot of reasons, but that’s a monologue for another time. With my ever-increasing interest in (and society's growing reliance on) technology, my graphic design work began to transform into web design projects. I naturally found myself designing more websites, taught myself HTML and CSS, and enjoyed having my work exist in a new medium.
I didn't (and still don't) believe that print was ever dead, but it did seem to lose its mass appeal, making room for something much more dynamic. Like style or fashion, things like this don’t ever truly die, but lay dormant to reemerge at some later point in time.
In no way was this the definitive path of past progression, but print became websites, websites became apps, and everything became “experiences.” Out of experience and interface design came product design (which some might say doesn’t really speak to a specific design discipline at all), and we slowly found ourselves in a world where design efficacy started to become increasingly measured. We stopped using design to communicate a message to our audience, and started to create “solutions” to problems — often these problems were of our (or a company’s) own making.
Sure, design should go way beyond just communicating, and finding solutions for people’s needs or desires is a completely genuine and viable design endeavor, the now ancient rise of smartphones and social media attest to that, but I often feel that as a designer, I'm being asked to focus all too narrowly on solving problems and that all of the other tenets of design thinking are no longer valued. More and more, design is about finding ways to convince people in the desert to buy sand (or perhaps to “solve” the problem of what to do with all of that sand that you’ve recently acquired?)
Like a great many things, it’s an exercise in balance, restraint, and honesty. “How did we get here?” you may be asking, regarding both the state of design and the point at which we’re at in this article.
Instead of listening to and communicating with our end users, customers, consumers, people, as designers we’re being encouraged to ‘play the game’, to get caught up in echo chambers with ourselves and with others who are connected to our discipline but who aren’t actually designing. Problem solving has replaced communication, and business needs define our value and purpose.
Some time ago, I came across — and yes, actually read — a post on LinkedIn (a potentially valuable but idealized echo chamber) written by a partner and design recruiter at a global talent consultancy. It wasn’t a long post, and I won’t pretend that it didn’t have some apt (albeit obvious) insights, but the end of the article left a bad taste in my mouth. Paraphrasing, “your portfolio isn’t just a collection of work, it’s a glimpse into your potential.”
Some might have read this and not batted an eye — isn’t the purpose of a portfolio to demonstrate what we’re capable of so that in turn, we can design more things to show people what we’re capable of? Aren't we trying to impress the recruiter, get a chance with the hiring manager, and receive a job offer at the end of it all? Personally, that's just not a game I'm interested in playing. In my experience, the eventual work is never as important or fulfilling as it was made to seem, and, if you get any amount of longevity at the company, you just look back on your time there and think, “what have I even done?”
Designers, people, humans, aren’t “potential,” and a portfolio is in fact a collection of our work. It’s what we’ve done in our careers as designers (whether short or long), and allows us to tell our own stories and be in control of our personal narratives. It helps those hiring take a peek at our potential, sure, but to state that is a portfolio's only point felt reductive (at best) and out of touch.
Does what you’ve accomplished change depending on who your client or company is? And who should have a say in what the narrative is of what you’ve done? Before I started my own design studio, I had been in communication with a few recruiters who basically told me that my portfolio needed to prove I had the skills for the work I'd already done. I was consumed with a feeling of extreme cognitive dissonance as I listened to these recruiters essentially tell me I needed to prove my past, and this was one of the moments that led me to stop interviewing and start Petal.
It might seem small or insignificant, and it likely has some merit, but it's become clear to me that the industry, and especially tech, wants portfolios (and in turn, designers) to become products. Portfolios are no longer a showcase of what we've done, but are becoming tools to be tinkered with in order to prove we're the best candidate for a certain role. Often this happens due to the advice or guidance of a recruiter or other non-designer — our work and history as designers becomes commodified. I’m not saying that this advice isn’t well-intentioned, but feels like we're being primed to become the next success story for these recruiters — a human trophy to be collected along the way, the collateral being our past work.
Portfolios aren’t “solutions” to the problem of finding a job or your next big thing, they’re tools to communicate what you’ve accomplished and how you think through design problems. Recruiters, entrepreneurs, and C-suite members shouldn't be telling you if you’re valuable or not — your work should speak to that on its own. Somewhere along the line, good designers have stopped trusting their intuition and experience (and yes, experience is data), and have started allowing business goals and KPIs to speak for their work and talent instead (because it’s difficult for non-designers to qualify talent any other way).
What does this all mean for the current state of design? I don’t believe it’s about a rigid or soapbox-y stance regarding what design is or isn’t, but I do think that it’s up to each of us, as designers, to decide for ourselves. For a moment, leave the echo chambers and don’t worry about your next role or employer. Ask yourself these guiding questions, “is this genuine," "am I helping people,” and “does this feel right?”
For me, it just didn’t feel right, and I realized that it hadn't for awhile. I'd stopped helping people and instead was allowing myself to be pulled in to focus on solving “problems'“ that I didn't even believe were really there. I can’t say that I love the state of things or how design is valued, but in going out on my own and starting Petal, I am starting to find my way back to controlling my narrative and aligning my design work with the core principles that I know are important and impactful.
I do know (or think that I know) that things won’t change for the better if we stay on the hamster wheel of being told what we need to be by everyone else. Let’s try to form our own understanding of our value and impact, do what we’re passionate and skilled at, and not worry so much about what the people next to us are doing. I would argue that most of us already know what feels "right" as designers, we just individually and collectively need to decide to prioritize that, cut through the noise, and not allow ourselves to exist to solve problems invented by others.
This whole thing resonates. Right there with you!