Is the Most Successful Design Invisible?

When I'm asked by people, 'What do you do?' the question that normally follows, (combined with a slightly puzzled expression) is, 'Oh? And what does a graphic designer do?'. I then proceed by trying to explain the hugely diverse range of work graphic designers 'do'.

Inevitably I end up looking like a lunatic franticly pointing around whatever environment we're in, saying, “Look, this is graphic design! And this, and so is this!” until whoever I'm explaining it to begins to understands or at least pretends to, to get me to shut up, probably wishing they had kept their mouth, and just Googled it when they got home.

I was puzzled myself by the vast variety and different type of work being expected of me when I first started college two years ago: from corporate identity; digital and web design; typography; branding; publication layout; animation; ad campaigns; creative thinking; copy writing. The list goes on. I and found myself uttering, 'But this isn't what a graphic designer does?!' I very quickly learnt that there is much more to being a graphic designer than simply designing business cards and club night flyers. Ultimately a graphic designer's job is to use visual elements to help communicate information, whatever that may be.

There is a great poster I saw a while ago, which reads 'Good Typography is Invisible. Bad Typography is Everywhere.' (I believe it was done by NY agency,Words Are Pictures.) From the moment I saw it I identified with the statement. Now when explaining to someone what graphic design is I always conclude, 'Good design is invisible. Bad design is Everywhere.'

The two short sentences sum up exactly what I’m trying to explain when I go into overdrive pointing at every piece of design in my path. I want them to understand that we are surrounded by design - not only typography, or graphic design but design of all shapes and forms, from service design to product design - it is a discipline that encompasses our lives every single day. Even things like a bus timetable, the washing instructions of their clothes or the road signs they follow to work, they are all are designed yet they are all things we take for granted as just being there. The designer and their decisions simply fade into the background.

The difference between Transport (top) and Curlz (bottom)!

Imagine if all the road signs in the UK were to be changed from the highly thought through and legible typeface - “Transport” - to something cluttered, complex and decorative such as “Curlz”. Then everyone would notice because no one would be able to read the directions, would inevitably get lost and then complain about the design of the road signs being terrible. Conversely though, no one congratulates the designers of the “Transport” typeface at the end of a journey for giving them clear directions to their destination!

This is a topic that really interests me, I think it could be applied to so many cases. For example, Gaps recent logo change (who was talking about Gap before that hideous Helvetica thing was released?!). Their “well designed” previous logo was invisible to people and isolated from their judgement simply because it was always there, serving it’s purpose.

I would like to develop the idea that the most successful design is always invisible. In a world saturated by design all competing for our attention. As a designer does your work not only have to satisfy the brief in hand, but also shout above the crowd? Perhaps proving that good design doesn't always have to be invisible.

These are all just the very beginning of lots of ideas that I am going to research and look into further for my dissertation. I have created a mind map of my though process so far. Tomorrow we have our first dissertation seminar so I am sure that will give me a clearer idea of what is expected from a dissertation, at the moment I am a little clueless! But it’s a start…

PS. I realise that the picture of the mind map is tiny, I have uploaded it to photo bucket HERE it's still pretty small. However it is too late to sort it out tonight, I'll rescan it tomorrow bigger :) night!