Design has always been transparent. It is all around us, without us being aware of its existence. Design is everywhere, at home, on the street, at work, on every object, and even on the human body. In addition to design being a part of us, we have all also become designers. The advantage is that people recognize the power of design to convey messages and realize ideas. The downside, for those who have studied design and are working professionally in the field, is that true design involves a lot of research, design thinking, and knowledge in several different worlds of content. Choosing a color, a font type, and setting it beautifully on a picture is not really design. It’s ornamentation. Design is not a “decoration committee.” Design is strategy, psychology, consumer behavior, and much more. Dozens of different worlds touch the field and combine to produce a result that is no less correct than it is beautiful, and which is essentially motivation toward a predetermined action.

In the Migdala blog, I wrote about the definition of design. The word “design” has always conveyed power and strength, which is why so many have adopted it. In the second half of the 20th century, design became a tool of consumer culture. Most people spoke about design in terms of product design, because most of them encounter defined aspects of design in connection with objects they use or activities they are involved with in some way. For example, there is also architectural design, graphic design, digital design, fashion design, interior design, environmental design, industrial design, and the like.

In the current century, design has become something larger under the leadership of IDEO, led by CEO Tim Brown, who called on all designers to think big. For him, thinking of design as only product design would be to overlook the huge potential the methodologies and power of design have to change systems and services.

Indeed, the world has gone in that direction. In recent years, I have been researching the development of design, both through independent reading and attending international conferences. There is no doubt that the design concept has expanded. Today, more than ever, it is characterized by innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, and a multidisciplinary nature. User-oriented design, for example, led us to explore the worlds of psychology and behavioral sciences. In a word, infinite. Riveting. This encounter between all kinds of worlds and entrepreneurship led us to develop some side projects. This time, we’re the customer. This whole trend is called Creative Economy, in which designers are not service providers, but develop products with themselves as the customer. And they also determine the strategy and marketing of the product.

The attempt to be on the customer side is very powerful. Although as a studio we have marketed ourselves over the years, suddenly dealing with new audiences for the products we developed is a different and instructive experience. An experience that makes us even better designers. If as designers we had to make quick decisions about design and strategy, now we were suddenly faced with making decisions about budgets, social networks and partners. You have no idea how hard it is to make decisions when we become our own customer, how hard it is to put ourselves aside and look at the project objectively.