Design in My Life
A personal reflection on how design became less of a job title and more of a way of seeing — and what that shift has cost and given me.
I did not grow up calling myself a designer. I grew up rearranging furniture and being annoyed when menus were hard to read. I took apart packaging to see how it held together. I had opinions about fonts before I knew the word for what I was doing. The job came later. The way of looking came first.
The Moment It Clicked
There was a specific afternoon — I was maybe twenty-three, sitting in a studio critique — when someone pinned their work to the wall and the room went quiet in the right way. It was a set of wayfinding icons for a hospital. Simple, clean, unmistakable. And I remember thinking: this is kindness made visible. Someone was frightened and lost, and this designer, months earlier in a completely different room, had anticipated that and solved for it.
That is when I understood that design was not about aesthetics. Aesthetics is a tool. What design is actually about is the relationship between a maker and the people who will encounter what they made — often without ever meeting.
How It Changed How I Live
Once you have that lens you cannot really take it off. I notice when a fridge is poorly laid out and I think about why. I notice when a contract is written to confuse rather than inform and I think about who benefits from that confusion. I notice the small moments of care: the extra handle on a kettle that makes it easier for arthritic hands to pour, the alt text on an image, the error message that says “that did not work — here is why” instead of just flashing red.
My life has become slightly harder to inhabit because of this. I am slower in shops. I get frustrated by things I probably should not care about. I have been told more than once that I am overthinking a receipt.
But I have also learned to take genuine pleasure in things done well. A door that opens exactly as you expect it to. A schedule that accounts for the fact that people get tired. A piece of software that quietly does something difficult so that you do not have to.
The Practice
Design as a personal practice means sitting with discomfort — both your own and other people’s. It means asking questions before proposing solutions. It means accepting that the first version of almost anything is wrong, and that being wrong is a stage in the process rather than an indictment of your ability.
It also means learning to let go. Not every piece of work will be excellent. Not every brief will give you room to do your best work. Some problems are not design problems. Knowing the difference is, itself, a kind of design skill.
I am still learning all of this. I expect I always will be. That is what I like about it.