Design as a Conversation

In Professor Housefield's blog, "Design as a Conversation," he posed the question "When does a designer's voice deliver a monologue rather than engage a conversation?" My answer is that design is never a monologue. Design is always speaking to an audience, calling out to someone, responding to someone or something, and initiating a conversation.

Design is never static. Design is never silent. Design is always speaking—sometimes it shouts and sometimes it whispers. When a design speaks, anyone who witnesses it is invited to respond. Design is a conversation. A successful design can solicit a response from anyone—a reader viewing their print ad in a magazine, a passerby stopping to notice a poster, or even a passenger (because the driver, of course, is focused on the road) racing by a billboard at sixty miles per hour.

Print design often has to anticipate the viewer's response because it cannot react to it the way interactive design can. Therefore, a designer must know their audience in order to understand the nature of the conversation they are engaging. For example, on a poster for Kawasaki I worked on in a recent internship, the conversation is started by metaphorically shouting to catch the audience's attention. The metaphoric shout is achieved by the dynamic angle of the the bike, the vibrant colors, which is followed by informing them of the rider and the bike in a manner that appeals to the target audience. As the designer I then assumed that I had caught their attention and piqued their interest and finished by quietly informing them that they could purchase this bike at Kawasaki.

Kawasaki KX450F impact board. Photographed by Douglas Henry. Designed by Douglas Henry and Sarah Smith

This design engages in conversational give-and-take by referencing hang lettering techniques in the typography. It was achieved with a bamboo pen and ink, which is a very old and widely used method. It also references the gritty, urban typographic style of punk bands and was inspired by graphics for The Adicts and The Exploited. This style is appropriate for this specific target market and therefore achieves a positive response. However, this style—or genre of conversation—would not be appropriate for a high end fashion retailer or a corporate business firm.

Just as certain conversations appeal more to certain people, certain designs appeal to certain audiences. The designer must always keep their target audience in mind when engaging in a design conversation. They want to convey the right idea to the right people.

Design is a conversation. It responds to other designs while still engaging and initiating further conversation. A design isn't created to stand alone. It is intended to invite a response.