Design Sketch

I found a really great quote from web designer Aaron Russell and I thought it was a perfect one to discuss with other designers.

“Every designers’ dirty little secret is that they copy other designers’ work. They see work they like, and they imitate it. Rather cheekily, they call this inspiration.” 

The sad thing about the design industry is that everyone thinks they can do it. It is my belief that if you call yourself a designer, you must actually design something. That may be designing a piece that is not anywhere else, or putting together a room or space in your own style and taste. People pay big money to have someone design their home and they expect to have it be something that no one else has, so why then do designers look to other designers work to copy? If its inspiration they’re looking for they should be looking everywhere else but other designers finished work. Inspiration can come from nature, the city, the woods, the climate, EVERYTHING!

In art school we learn to represent our concept for design using images or items that are not an actual designers work. If there is a specific theme in a design we must dissect that word and its meaning to fully describe our design intent through something natural. This allows us to design something that is purely from our own minds, and not a replication of something we saw someone else do. This is what we as designers need to get back to. We need to start getting back to the real design from within ourselves. Designers need to have their own design style and look only within themselves to find their inspiration.

Heres another one I found: What are your thoughts?

What do you think? Are you a designer who really designs or just re-designs? Share your thoughts here and comment below.

I didn’t want this blog to be just about pictures, although that seems obvious for a design based blog. I wanted one day a week to have a place to share some of my thoughts too. And yeah I’ll add a picture to add to all the writing.. ha!

So I was thinking about what to share with all of you in my first post and it took me a long time to decide on something. Then I thought I’d write about something all bloggers think about, and everyone deals with differently which is this exact problem. How much of my personal life and personal thoughts do I want to share with the world? I mean, I started this blog and having an online presence to share my thoughts and design sense with the online world, so why am I hesitating every time I have to share something totally personal?

I’ve written my About Me page a million times and every time I’m thinking, “No one cares about that, why do I need to put that in there?” Then I read what other bloggers write about blogging or see how much they share of themselves and it gets pretty personal! I love it though. I like knowing who the people behind the images are. I feel like I have an idea of who that person is and I read the posts based on who they are and I enjoy them more. This makes me wonder, do people get a sense of who I am through my blog? Does it add to the experience for the reader or do you just care about the pretty pictures?

Well it’s going to be a goal of mine to slowly start sharing more about myself through my posts and designs. Hopefully within time my readers can know a little more about the person behind the screen.

-S