Design is the Umami✺
of Creation

What makes design hard to define stems, in my opinion, from looking at the domain the wrong way. There is agreement that it's related to all kinds of creations, but – unlike other domains – design doesn't stand on its own¹.

Other acts of creation, such as painting, programming or woodworking, are easy to explain: One paints a painting, programming produces software and woodworking calls all sorts of wooden objects into existence. But designing gives you … a design?

Without those other "things"
design can't even exist

Universities implicitly understand this dilemma: One studies Furniture Design, UX Design, Media Design, and so on — but never just Design. This seems inefficient. Why bother learning about non-design things and not just focus on design itself … until you understand that without those other "things" design can't even exist.

Eugen Herrigel describes this observation when talking about Zen in his book "Zen in the Art of Archery" (1948):
He explains that one cannot study Zen on its own, only through other practices like archery or flower arranging.

Following his logic, design programs could be called:

• Design in the art of furniture making
• Design in the art of software development
• Design in the art of industrial production
• etc.

This phrasing brings to light that e.g. "furniture making" is the soil that is required for design to exist in.

Why do we even need designers?

The need for a definition is a modern problem as historically the role of a designer hasn't existed². A carpenter, for example, wouldn’t only design the thing (= coming up with the idea), but also actually make it (= bringing the idea into existence).

This distinction between concept and execution can be confusing: If a client in my design studio wants a website, I often have to explain why two types of people are needed to make it happen³.

If designers haven't existed in the past, this – rightfully – raises the question why you'd even need them?

Take physical goods for example: The whole industrial production process is so complicated that one person (or even multiple teams) are busy figuring out how to produce something … so outsourcing what it is you want produced to somebody else makes a lot of sense. It’s the essence of specialization.

Incidentally, this is what makes engineers more important than designers in the process of creation, as it's often better that something exists – even in a worse form – than not at all (from a market/company perspective).

Due to this specialization, designers know less about the production and engineers less about the customer/user.

On both sides this can create problems: A designer comes up with a chair that is impossible to manufacture or an engineer creates an app that nobody knows how to use.

Anecdotally this often creates a frustrating push and pull experience for both sides. Designers complain about what they perceive as lazy engineers and engineers about fantastical and un-implementable designs. Ironic, since both are fulfilling their expected roles.

If your goal is not quality,
you don't need a designer.

Essentially, the designer makes sure that the quality of the creation is great⁴. If your goal is not high quality, you don't need a designer^{5 & 6}.

There are multiple qualities that this can refer to: Designers often take care of the visual quality – e.g. is easily associated with a brand or that something looks premium⁷. In the area of user experience design (UX), they can make sure something is intuitive or a joy to use. It depends on the area worked in.

Other qualities are handled by non-designers. Ironically this includes what is commonly called “QA” (Quality Assurance) which checks whether the final product is according to the specifications.

How non-designers talk about professional designers reveals a lot. When they mention "designer chairs" or "designer knives", it indicates that the designer failed to increase the total quality of the product: Normal chairs or knives don't grow on trees of course but these emphasized “designer“ objects focus too heavily on one quality (often appearance).

Excessive focus leads to imbalance

This excessive focus leads to imbalance: A "designer chair" might look great but is unpleasant to sit in. A "designer lamp" might have the perfect shape but is terrible to install. This imbalance reduces the total quality by introducing flaws⁸.

However, if a designer and an engineer work together they can create something truly great: Creations packed with Umami.

Umami is – after salty, sour, sweet and bitter – the fifth basic taste. It represents savoriness but wasn't found until the early 20th century due to being hard to notice and distinguish. But now it explains why tomatoes are so delicious, soy sauce mouth-watering and a bag of chips so hard to put down.

Umami can’t shine on its own but everything else would be bland without it. Just like design.

• Philipp Schmitt↗ for being my editor
• Benedikt Groß↗ and David Oswald↗ for additional input