Choose Design

Design is often something we turn to after we’ve solved the big problems - as if it is comfort food. It is difficult to exaggerate just how far that view misses the point. And it is difficult to underestimate the opportunities we miss, and the resources we potentially squander, by not exploiting what design can offer us.

First of all, design is a unique tool for solving big problems. It is what we should bring to the table at the start. Why? Because design helps us reframe questions as well as reimagine answers. Design is not just a drawing: it is an approach, a tool, a way of looking at the world and making it different. To borrow an epithet of scorn from sustainability, it is not ‘designer bling’.

We can choose how to define design. Certainly, it can be seen as representation or decoration - or it can be seen as ‘the purpose or planning that exists behind an action or object’. I choose the latter.