Art and Design

But, Is it Art?


- Fine artists determine their own set of goals and approach them in the visual manner they choose, while designers are given goals from a client and must convey them in an appropriate manner.
- Although, once an artist has his or her goal set, the process includes the same method of development that a designer will employ in order to establish the visual embodiment of the idea or goal.
- Designer's, however often have to restrain their visual outcome in terms of readability or blatant information, as conventional artists have no bounds and may choose to conceal as much of their point as they'd like.
- Therefore, a designer and an artist are not entirely different, only in terms of medium and the result of a purpose.

M/M Discussion


- Art, be it design or fine art, should be about a collaboration between the artist or designer and the audience, not only the finished painting or aesthetic. Therefore, fine artists as well as designers must work with the fact that the audience will be interpreting the work, whether it's an abstract painting or a poster for a conference.
- Designers should not be looked upon as butlers, in that they are simply used to make things look better. They are there for the purpose of invention and visual problem solving when portraying information visually.
- To designers, context is infinitely important, as it is to most artists as well, but the limits of what one can do with the given context can be radically expansive in artists terms while designers must remain contained in abstraction in order to fulfill the mission of design.
- The freedom that the artists have though, can be limited by preferences in the art world; by what the galleries will exhibit.
- Artists like Michelangelo were hired to design the ceiling of a chapel, but his creativity was not haltered, so designers are not entirely limited to adhere to clarity.
- "Perhaps all we can say with conviction is that some art is as bad as design and some design is as good as art."

Art's Little Brother


- Designers follow artists, in that art is incredibly more expensive as well as much more highly praised and exalted.
- However, designers are beginning to include the amount of self expression that artists have always relied on in the past. Therefore, the divide between artists and designers is shortening, and critics can now, sometimes, see design as art as well.
- Design must exist somewhere in a piece of artwork. For example, even Pollock had to somehow decide where to drip his paint.
- A designer works for a client, meaning his or her conceptual goal is derived from an outside, often business oriented, source. An artist works for his or her self, with a personal concept and self-influenced motive.
- New digital tools have allowed designers to venture beyond simply information handling and identity, therefore the self expression not usually present can now be employed.
- Design critics, or designers themselves, have often disliked these types of design work, although it may complete the requirements of the client.
- Design, as opposed to art, relies on visual aesthetic and what can be considered good in those terms, however fine art does not pertain to such perimeters.
- The struggle with new, expressive and different design is not trying to debase fine art, but merely to raise awareness of design as an artform, designers as artists themselves, and its positive influence on the culture.


The theme of art and design is obvious in these three readings, but more specifically, there is a process motif in all three as well. All three articles state mention the difference between designers recieving a foreign concept, while artists work towards their own personal goal, but it is clear in the readings that they can relate in that the two work in terms of chasing a visual representation of the goal. In the M/M discussion there is mention of a gallery exhibit of design work or the designers personal work, and also stated is that as the concept of visual determination towards a conceptual agenda is being recognized by critics to be a part of design as well as fine art. Also, that the digital medium allows the designer to skip the tedious method of type setting, for example, therefore allowing more room for visual self expression and aesthetic freedom. So designers have assumed their signature style, inviting critics to recognizes a visual signature that has forever been a thread through fine artists and their work. But once again, the point with these articles was not to undermine fine art, and to establish design as a superior art form due to its universal significance, but rather to affirm that designers deserve praise in a way that artists do. Proof of that statement lies in stating that a piece of furniture, essentially a form of design, can be sold now for relatively the same price as a renowned painting or sculpture. In so many words, design can now be appreciated as art due to the realization of a designers individuality in his or her method as solving a conceptual or informational problem visually, the same way artists have done for many years, only sometimes without concepts of their own.