Celebrate Good Design! (But Define What It Is First)

Thinking about the potential gap between design that’s good and design that succeeds raises the obvious question: What is “design,” anyway? This is a question that has been picked over for decades. Advocates of the profession—critics, curators, designers themselves—insist that the work is underestimated, if not flat-out marginalized. Design (they are forever pointing out) is not merely an exercise in superficial aesthetics or styling, as the public may assume. It is, rather, a far more serious matter of problem-solving and experience-shaping, driven by a uniquely rigorous approach to the human-made world in all its dimensions.