To designers out there, let me get this straight, design is not something you can do by surfing Dribbble/Behance and copying each other’s works.
Design is phenomenology, my dears.
If you doubt, then pay attention to those some of the so called “design community” websites, it’s not difficult to notice that most of the designs we saw, are more likely to be the same. When I say they’re the same, I really mean it.
Well, we might know one of the reasons why most of the local designers nowadays have incorrect direction on the way they think about design, is because they’re all sitting with their computers by hours, clicking back and forth the reference pages to make a copy of them, and then just to design something for their clients to say “good”.
The fact is that we are all designers, then yes, we all know what user interface means to clients. But hey, great design doesn’t come from interface, it comes from the way people perceive it by using human senses. Great designers are those who are willing to use their senses to go out to the real world, to experience real problems. How could you develop the message? And how could you deliver that message through a design if you didn’t even experience the problem by yourself?
Design is phenomenology, the phenomenology in bionomics. A design process is the study of life of the organism in their natural habitat and their adaptations to their surroundings in the real world.
In order to identify a human’s problem, first of all, if you’re not willing to go out to the actual world to experience the actual circumstance, then don’t be a designer, be an ice-cream seller who makes everyone happy every day.
We do not obtain knowledge by standing outside the world, dears.
Please make things that are worthy to be called “design”.
Don’t be a duplicator. Be a problem researcher and solver, so that one day you’ll be proud to call yourself a “designer”. Best.
Cuong Dao