“Design is intelligence made visible”, says Alina Wheeler, a popular branding consultant. Designing, in general, is a plan or the execution of a plan. It is a process of transforming the abstract into the actual, a fabulous method of representing ideas, serving as a mode of communication between it’s designer and the audience. Through the rapid advancement of technology and it’s accessibility, designing has proved to be an amazing way of carrying out information about any concerned subject, creating social awareness based on different topics, promoting business, in an utterly creative manner.
Types of Arts and Designing:
There is no limit to creation of an art, an emotion. However, as per the extensions and growth of designing, the list of some well-known designing types is included below:
- Graphic Designing – It includes typography, photography, iconography, and illustration. It is one of the most in-demand forms of designing, and is a well profitable career.
- Web Designing – Slightly different to Graphic Designing, Web Designing offers it’s users a different medium to showcase their creations. Unlike Graphic designers, a web designer has to be efficient in balancing both coding and design formats to create posts for the web.
- Fashion Designing – A well renowned subject in Designing and Art, influenced by numerous traditions, cultures or social stereotypes over periods of time, it offers it’s learners to style clothing and accessories.
- Animation Designing(like Motion Graphics, 2D or 3D Animation, Stop Motion, Traditional Animation) – It is about sequential presentation of ideas or scenes involved in a story-based movie, video, video games, or other social media posts.
- Interior Designing – Just as the name itself suggests, Interior Designing including Textile Designing is proficiency in planning, decorating home textiles and arranging the house materials in places to make the room or space look attractive and feel comfortable, as per requirements.
- Product Designing – It marks the concept of how a product should look to be best sold in the market, making it as user-friendly and exceptional as possible.
- Logo Designing – Logo Designers create logos(can be called as recognised symbol) for brand new companies to launch in the market, for applications on the Internet, different organizations and various other media or social media uses. Every country has it’s own, unique, specially designed logo as in coins, and in Flags. The materials in our house such as a refrigerator, mobile phone, T.V., etc., all have a logo.
- Architectural Designing – It is to design the structure of a building. An architectural designer plans and designs the building, whereas an architect helps in constructing it.
- User Interface Designing and User Experience Designing – They ensure compatibility and maximum usability of technological devices for users.
Apart from abovementioned types of arts and designing, few other renowned subjects of designing includes software and engineering designs, art direction, application designing, environmental designing, industrial designing, which also makes designing a part of Visual Arts and Fine Arts, two widely studied, enhancing subjects. Another form of designing called “Line Art” or “Line Drawing” has also gained publicity in various social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, etc.
Uses and Purpose of Arts and Designs
Owing to the rapid improvement of designing and more of it’s uses in various fields of life, designing has gained popularity among many. The sole purpose of it has to do with enriching and bettering our lives in many aspects. It is used to spread awareness, to sell a product in the market and beautify them, to create videos in YouTube, video games, magazine, etc.
Be it an old T-shirt, a broken wall, or simply a white sheet of paper, one can design and style it as he likes in order to reuse it. Psychology studies have also proven that designing a flash-card, or a notebook has proven to attract interest in a reader’s mind. So, it can be said that designing is an effective tool that can be used to qualify interest in academic subjects, for students. Undoubtedly, designs make anything look charming and pleasing. Not only this, designing has it’s stretch on spirituality too. A notable form of design and art, called the “Mandala Art” is a geometric configuration of symbols and is used by a number of spiritual people, as a tool to evolve the practice of meditation through focusing attention and creating a sacred space.
Places you can take courses(professional or not) on Designing. How it can be pursued as a career.
Depending on the respective fields of designing, various schools, colleges and other academic institutions offer courses on this subject.
- During the present pandemic situation, many colleges and universities are offering free online courses. The California Institute of Arts, California, in partnership with Coursera, an online learning platform, has free Graphic design courses available on it’s site, to be enrolled in and earn a recognisable online certificate(printable), with financial aids available. Coursera itself offers such free courses that can be put on to the list of one’s achievements in “extracurricular activities” and LinkedIn profile.
- YouTube has numerous channels offering free lectures and advice on how to learn designing as a skill, starting from beginner’s level to expert level. CharlieMarieTV, Adobe Creative Cloud, 99Designs are some recommended channels.
- National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi and Bengaluru, ARCH College of Design and Business in Jaipur are some popular institutes. Canada, Germany, U.S., Australia, Italy are considerably good places to study courses on Arts and Designs.
- Few mobile applications are available on Play Store to practice sketches and designs like “Autodesk Sketchbook” app(free), Adobe apps(both free and paid), etc.
Recommended books to study Designing.
As a beginner, one can start off with “The Non-Designer’s Design Book” by Robin Williams, “A Graphic Design Student’s Guide To Freelance” by Ben Hannam. Other books to mention include “Graphic Design Visionaries” by Caroline Roberts, “Visual Grammar” by Christian Leborg, “Change By Design” by Tim Brown, “Graphic Design School” book by David Dabner and Sandra Stewart, “Thoughts on Design” by Paul Rand, etc.
Jobs
Learning Design can lead you to be a professional :
- Copywriter
- Editor
- Jewellery Designer
- Fashion Designer
- Art Director
- Animator
- Journalist
- Blogger
- Artist
- Video Maker
- Software Designer
- Graphic Designer
- Architect Designer
- Logo Designer
- Web Writer
- Calligrapher
- Video Game maker, etc.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS), in 2019, number of jobs in the field of Graphic Designing were counted to be 281,500 and their median annual salary in 2018 was $50,370. According to study, the mean salary for Fashion Designers are considered to be $6200 per month and $74,410 per year. Depending on the level of performance of an individual and their works, and due to the increasing demands of extensive study on this field for media and social media, the salary ranges and varies, however, a designer lives an over-all happy career life, better in comparison to many other professionals.
Conclusion
A designer has the strength to put an impact on the viewer’s mind. A design, an art, is a kind of therapy, it is pure joy and satisfaction, a state of mind and way of living life. It is an emotion, a symbol of creativity. And as long as one keeps creating, one keeps growing and learning, and living. A hobby is a form of passion, when followed as a dream job, that’s where the greatest possibility of success lies. Being a patient learner, determined, consistent and open to knowledge brings out the potential to make dreams come true. One must remember, in the process of growth, failure is only a boon and another chance to try harder and master it. Hobbies are what one loves, and it is wise and sane enough to say “Love what you do. Do what you love.” As the three famous quotes suggest:
- “There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than one you’re capable of living.” – Nelson Mandela.
- “ The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” – Neil Gaiman.
- “Every pro was once an amateur. Every expert was once a beginner. So dream big. And start now.” – Unknown.
By Tanima Sarkar
