Being a designer

1. Being a designer Prepared by Dr Tan Wee Hoe

2. The value of designers • The meaning of designers • The role and responsibilities of designers • The manifestation of designers’ value • The criteria and quality of professional designers

3. The meaning of designers • Professionals who • Aim to achieve a clear outcome or function • Execute procedural creative thinking • Apply field-specific knowledge and skills • Express the creative thinking effectively • Realise the thought to certain extent. • Creative and innovative

4. The roles and responsibilities • Field-oriented • Not limited to creating additional values upon the design target. • e.g. product designer must create products that meet the market’s specifications. • Design process is about thinking and coordinating consumers’ needs, social environment, current trend, ethical considerations, etc. • Invisible yet voluminous values were created in the process—hence the value of designers.

5. The manifestation of designers’ value 1. Creating commercial values directly or indirectly. • E.g. product design, architecture design • Perceived additional values • The values created through design has been seen as “additional” because some people regards such values as something subsidiary upon the basic functions of particular products. • However, the functionality of many products has become secondary as compared to the aesthetic aspects of those products.

6. The manifestation of designers’ value • Example: Toyota Avanza • The pursuit of trend and taste

7. The manifestation of designers’ value • The social values of designers • Both direct and indirect values could be generalised as the evaluation human being made towards their own consumer needs. • While facing various needs of consumers, designers should direct appropriate rationalisation for consumers, i.e. guide the choice and taste of consumers. • This would form a positive demand and production cycle.

8. Changing consumers’ behaviour • Example: hindering animal fur products

9. Changing consumers’ behaviour • The use of hybrid or electrical cars

10. Design as an creative expression toward social issues • The language of design could be more lively than literary words, more direct than fine artworks, louder than shouts of saying.

11. Criteria and quality of designers • Have comprehensive knowledge of design fundamentals and theories • Have professional skills in basic technologies • Have sensitive observation and mastery of details • Have good collaborative and communication skills • Have strong sense of responsibility and team work • Accumulate social experience while keeping abreast of trends • Concern about individual virtue development • Enhance creative and ideation abilities continuously • Present personality in value creation

12. How to be a professional designer? 1. Have comprehensive knowledge of design fundamentals and theories • Formal education, i.e. Bachelor of Design • Self-study • Reading books, magazines, journal articles • Watching TV commercials, TV programs, movies, animation, Public Service Announcement (PSA), game cinematics, etc. • Keeping active sketch books and learning journal

13. How to be a professional designer? 2. Have professional skills in basic technologies • Multiple thinking skills • Mastery of basic and advanced software • Freeware: MS Paint, Office tools, HTML, Blender • Proprietary software: Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, 3ds, Maya, Dreamweaver • Professional training, e.g. certification in Adobe, Autodesk products Coffee Jay Chou

14. How to be a professional designer? 3. Have sensitive observation and mastery of details • Be serious when you intend to observe • “You see what you want see” • Avoid “you see what you see but you don’t see what you see” • Attention to details in critical moments

15. How to be a professional designer? 4. Have good collaborative and communication skills • Mastery of design language: technical and art terminologies • Good English language skills: listening, reading, writing & speaking • Good body language: be attentive to client’s problems; empathy

16. How to be a professional designer? 5. Have strong sense of responsibility and team work • Deadline means DEADline. • Be a team player: Belbin’s team roles Nine complementary roles of successful business teams

17. How to be a professional designer? 6. Accumulate social experience while keeping abreast of trends • Everybody starts from being a beginner—you need to gain your experience. • Young designer: more imaginative ideas • Experienced designer: more thoughtful, hence applicable ideas • Being creative alone is not enough

18. How to be a professional designer? 7. Concern about individual virtue development • Reading: religious books, Chicken Soup series • Watching movies: Pay it forward, King’s Speech • Reflect your positive character in design • Reliability, punctuality, agility, accuracy • Passion in arts, design and career • Let your design speaks for you!

19. How to be a professional designer? 8. Enhance creative and ideation abilities continuously • Creative and ideation abilities are learnable • Brainstorming, 5W1H, Six Thinking Hats, Story creation matrix, etc • Combining creative, scientific and pragmatic elements in design • Know the differences between artwork and design work. • Be sensitive when putting on designer’s perspective

20. How to be a professional designer? 9. Present personality in value creation • In search of who you are, i.e. your identity • Personality: integrating your identity with your design knowledge and skills • Branding through glocalisation and Blue Ocean Strategy • E.g. Dr. Tan Wee Hoe = games = GBL specialist

21. Reflection and reflexion • Who are designers? • What are the roles and responsibilities of designers? • How do YOU want to be a professional designer?