Design vs Art
Shenzhen China, Steven Holl
The March issue of Metropolis digs deep into how the creative process happens for a number of designers. From Steven Holl’s watercolors that structurally ideate—and ultimately become—homes, to John Pawson’s travel photographs that inform the museum he’s building, and Matali Crasset’s modern vessel inspired by age-old dishes. These stories not only show how designers navigate the tricky spaces between design concept and final product but also reveal how art is integral to the design process. Indeed, in each of the pieces—the watercolors, the photographs, the African bowls—art is firmly in timeline of the design project it’s attached to.
Is there, then, a line between what is art and what is design? What is the fundamental difference?
Typographer and designer Roberto De Vincq de Cumptich, author of Men of Letters and People of Substance, defines the difference as being about the economics of consumption: Design demands and expects a consumer, art hopes for one but is not dependent upon it. He writes:
“Design is not Art, since Art exists as an answer to a question posed by an individual artist, while Design exists as an answer to a question posed by the marketplace. Design must have an audience to come into being, while Art seeks an audience, sometimes, luckily, finding it, sometimes not. Art pushes the limit of human experience and language for its own sake, while Design might do this but only to humanize and integrate people’s lives in the context of an economy. Design needs an economic system, while Art does not. Art may become a product, but it’s not the reason why it was created, but how our society transforms it into a commodity.”
Similarly to De Vincq de Cuptich’s idea of design being dependent upon context, Craig A. Elimeliah writes, in an essay for the AIGA, “Art vs. Design” that art isn’t expected to follow rules, whereas design absolutely must, “…design in the commercial sense is a very calculated and defined process; it is discussed amongst a group and implemented taking careful steps to make sure the objectives of the project are met.
“On the other hand, art is something completely separate—any good artist should convey a message or inspire an emotion it doesn’t have to adhere to any specific rules, the artist is creating his own rules.
“I can completely appreciate the paths laid down by past artists who establish a style or method but at this point it seems that when that style or method is used the art then turns into design.”
In an essay from 1998 on the University of North Carolina’s site, Michael Brady argues that the difference is really about perspective and intent. In his piece, “Art and Design, What’s the Big Difference?” he writes:
“Beginning the mid-1800s, many artists chose to stand apart from worldly life in order to critique it, to forsake the programs of patrons in order to set their own programs, to discard the public moral code to promote a different code. Although many artists claim to address their art to the world, their method has been to take from the world only on their terms and give back as they see fit. This is definitely not the way of design, which considers the world’s purpose first and fits the work to that end.”
Brady also suggests that a designer “arranges the ingredients,” whereas an artist has “all the options …available without precondition,” leading us to an idea inherent in all of these discussions. Each new design has history of principals behind it and, more importantly (because this could be true of art), those principles are ultimately defined by its end-user (whether a given design achieves that or not depends on the specifics of the project, of course).
If the designer’s credo (via architect Louis Sullivan) is ‘Form follows function’ then the artist’s is Keats’s ‘Truth is beauty/Beauty, truth.”
Starre Vartan is an author, journalist, and artist whose work concentrates on sustainability in consumer products, including a focus on vernacular, nature-based and eco design. Recognized as a green living expert, she is the publisher of Eco-chick.com, a columnist at MNN.com, and contributes to Inhabitat and The Huffington Post. She is Metropolis’s copyeditor.
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Using something objective like an object’s relationship to consumerism and economics seems to be a good way to make the distinction between art and design.
Comment by Simon — March 27, 2013, @ 12:42 pm
A useful distinction between the intentions/decisions that produce “art” v. “design”, and I’d be interested in your thoughts about how they might correlate with different subjective responses by the people who “experience” them as form that follows function v. form that follows beauty/truth — if they do.
Comment by R.L.Hart — March 27, 2013, @ 3:38 pm
The issue seems to be what Mr. Brady pointed out, that the distinction between the two came about as a by-product of cultural shifts that where happening in the 19th century. This distinction as qualified by De Vincq de Cuptich is primarily held by academics who don’t actually produce either design or art, because if they did, they’d know that the creative process underlies both. De Vincq de Cuptich’s statement “Design is not Art, since Art exists as an answer to a question posed by an individual artist, while Design exists as an answer to a question posed by the marketplace” implies that one can’t do both at the same time. Great work will produce delight whether it’s defined as design or art.
Certainly one would never discount the great Michelangelo’s ouvure as being mere design, but by this market place definition, he would be seen as a mere marketing genius. Is Bernini’s fabulous religious sculpture such as the Ecstasy of Santa Teresa commissioned by the Catholic Church art to promote the counter-reformation, design, or both? If we can answer that question, will it detract or enhance our enjoyment of it? To an academic, maybe, to a schmuck like me, no.
I think there is a distinction, depending on the skill of the author and the impact of their work etc., but it’s ultimately unnecessary to classify work into either category since the creative process is still an intuitive one, and as such impossible to pin down with any finality.
Comment by Thayer-D — March 29, 2013, @ 2:36 pm
Great to have something of substance written about and a real discussion on things that “bespeak the dignity of man (and women)”. Design and art are ‘real’; solid, dimensional and certainly a great deal more intelligent and nurturing than the smell of politics, money and war.
Comment by Gerry Vartan — April 15, 2013, @ 11:11 pm
Art and design were the same until the Enlightenment and the revolutions that followed it. The aristocrats were the tastemakers and painters to furniture designers found favor and styles were made. The artist and the designers jobs were to glorify the ruling class and the church. With the Enlightenment, and the subsequent fall of monarchies and church, and the very soon after the Industrial Revolution the middle class (bourgeois) became the tastemakers and the Victorian Area of machine made bad taste was ushered in. We still live in that world.
A revolt of those associated with academia, (not aristocracy or the bourgeois) and now freed to think and say what they felt ushered in two groups of tastemakers: The designers, who worked for the class they aspired to and the artists who did as well until the rebellion of the Impressionists who were academics against the academy. The artists become those who stripped away the formal cultural overlay in an attempt to make art everywhere and see and show the world differently. The Cubists and the Bauhaus tried to re-merge art and design. The bourgeois Nazis broke that up and art has separated since.
Art defines itself against the culture or past culture in the narrative of cultures colliding. Art is always trying to peel the layers of bias and fear off of our eyes and ears to return us to a child-like open state of perceptibility. Design is still about aspiration, making the useful attractive. Design makes talismans that add to the layers of cultural baggage we layer onto ourselves to inhabit a hostile world. I say this as a designer and landscape architect. The challenge of making a landscape that is art is the greatest. Gardens are so are so difficult to abstract or transform into a entity that can comment on the dominant culture in a way that gives any new information to this world.
Comment by Ed Hamm — May 7, 2013, @ 3:53 pm