Design has a profound impact on the way people live their lives. We can experience it in the objects around us, the spaces we create, the products we buy, and the way we interact with the built world around us. Designers have the unique opportunity to apply their own perspective, to bring intentionality, to an often uncontrollable, and unorganized world. Everyone engages in the practice of design through the decisions they make, such as the layout of furniture in a room, an office set up for improving productivity, a carefully executed dish made in the kitchen, or the way they decorate and bring beauty to their life. Simply put, design exists as the opposite of the arbitrary, and good design is the result of a designer succeeding to positively influence their users’ experience.
The presence of good design can often affect people’s lives without them even realizing, and so to understand the importance of it, it helps to consider the effects of poor design decisions. Design that isn’t fully thought out can negatively affect our emotions by being confusing, frustrating, upsetting and even dangerous. Take for instance a door that appears like it needs to be pulled, when it really needs to be pushed, or a room set up to make you constantly travel back and forth to perform a task, a chair or sofa that doesn’t properly support your body, or even a device that never quite works the way you would expect it to. In contrast, the best designs are thoughtful, beautiful, simple, and most importantly human. When a space is filled with design, it is thereby also filled with a sense of humanity, allowing us to feel more connected to it.
When you choose what kind of design to bring into your home, think about what it communicates to you, and how it makes you feel. Color, quality, style, and culture affect the way we perceive design. By considering this, one can surround themselves with design that makes them feel joy, and that is the heart of good design.