Designing with a Purpose

Today I watched a Ted Talk by John Hockenberry.  He says that we are all designers.  True...but I also have to add that there is a lot of bad design out there.  How do you distinguish the good from the bad?  John said that to be a good designer a person has to design with intent.  I couldn't agree more.  I think that designing without a purpose is like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.  ...Okay, it may not kill you, but your final design is definitely not going to be graceful.

How do you graphically design with a purpose though?  For starters, a new graphic designer (such as myself) might think that you can jump straight into Illustrator or Photoshop upon receiving that assignment.  Wrong.  My more experienced design friends taught me that to create with a purpose a person must first draw a concept out by hand.  Yes, this was hard for me to grasp at first, but now that I have started sketching things out by hand I feel that a lot of the design process is coming along more smoothly — particularly with web design.  I am by no means a talented "artiste" but by practicing techniques with repetition I will have developed tangible skills in the near future.

Furthermore, you need to know your audience.  The user experience dictates how well you have created something.  The more seamless the user's interaction is with your design, the more you will know how well you created it.  This is where designing with intent comes in.  If you don't know your audience, then how can you sell a product to them?

So, to sum up: draw things out first by hand and know your audience.  If anyone else has anymore tips on how to design with a purpose, please share.

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Here is the video to John Hockenberry's talk if you are interested: