As a new designer at Azul 7, I have found myself spending a lot of quality time with Pantone® swatches – choosing just the right hue, in the right value, with the right saturation to fit the brand of a given company. This of course got me thinking about color and how it often times communicates an emotion or idea better than words ever could. Then, somewhere between Warm Red U and 431 U, I began to wonder what my day would look like if told it through the eyes of Pantone® colors. Could it possibly be the beginning of a secondary color palette for Azul 7?

Being a designer is a full time job – and by full time job I mean 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One’s inner designer can never be turned off, no matter how heroic the attempt to ignore it. Each and every thing - from the Chinese take out menu on your refrigerator to the pattern on your sister’s tank top - triggers some sort of designerly critique. You can call it whatever you want - designer’s insomnia, the designer zombie, designer intuition, or just plain observation - but you can’t make it go away.

In many ways a designer’s ability to constantly absorb visual inspiration is a great asset, but for every spark of creative mojo that comes my way, there is always a counterpart that ruins a perfectly good conversation with friends or romantic moment with a loved one. What follows is my most recent account of the many ways my inner designer has tried to sabotage my life outside of work:

The Ice Cream Incident

A few weeks ago I spent the evening walking around one of our city’s great lakes with some friends. We stopped for ice cream afterwards, and that is when the trouble started. My eyes became affixed to the pattern on my sister’s tank top. I couldn’t keep myself from staring rudely at her chest, trying to decipher where I had seen the pattern before. Was it one of the pages from Owen Jones’ Grammar of Ornament? Or had I seen it on the website of a restaurant I recently visited? I could not wrap my mind around where this familiar pattern was haunting me from, and in a moment of frustration I finally blurted out “WHERE is that pattern from!?”. I was completely zoned in to my sister’s shirt, and equally zoned out of the conversation the rest of my friends were engaged in. Naturally, I didn’t realize that my call of distress came at a most inopportune moment in the conversation. Silence followed, along with some blank stares and laughs. How could I have missed out entirely on what my friend was talking about because of some pattern on my sister’s shirt? Was the origin of this graphic subconsciously more important that what my friends had to say? Doubtful. But how do I explain my deep frustration over this pattern to an actuary, teacher, and event coordinator? After an unsuccessful attempt, a few sighs, and shaking heads the interrupted conversation continued. Secretly, my mind still searched and searched for the source of the pattern.

Weeks later, I still have not completely figured out where I recognized the pattern from. I have spent many wasteful hours searching the internet and racking my brain for an answer, but still haven’t gotten to the source. What I have learned is that the pattern is Persian in nature and based on a geometric system. Yes, a similar pattern is illustrated in the Grammar of Ornament (see above), but it’s not a dead ringer. So….if anyone has seen this pattern and can identify its origin…PLEASE…help my put my inner designer to rest!

Having recently graduated from a four-year graphic design program, education is still a prominent thought in my mind. Four weeks after starting here at Azul7 the same thought continues to narrate my bus rides home – I still have so much to learn. I realize that every rookie designer goes through a similar phase during the beginning of their career, but I cannot help but wonder if there is any way that my college education could have better prepared me for entering the world of design, particularly the growing world of interactive design?

I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have been placed in the hands of a professor in my last semester of college, who constantly encouraged us to think about design as an interactive experience. Until that point in my education, interactive design seemed to be more of an afterthought in the curriculum of many professors. Since graduating, I have become increasingly concerned that not enough emphasis is placed on interactive design, and that interactive media is being positioned not as a core component but rather an elective.

Design will be a means for communicating information to audiences. In order to do this effectively, design constantly evolves with technology. As the world begins to devote more and more of its time and resources towards online and digital activity, design will do the same. So, why aren’t design programs following suit? Students are required to take classes in packaging and logo design, yet not all programs require students to study web design. Websites and other interactive media are far more effective at reaching audiences than direct mail and packaging campaigns, yet certain schools continue to elevate traditional design fields above the rest.

Web design has come a long way since the 90s, and it’s time that design programs, professors, and students start realizing that a well-designed web site can be far more beautiful than any bottle of vodka or line of beauty products.

Designers, start encouraging students and young designers to think beyond print. Share your work with as many classrooms and students as possible. Professors, start showing students the potential and potency of interactive design. An education isn’t valuable if it isn’t relevant. Students, start paying attention to what’s happening in the world outside of your design classrooms. Look to business and other sectors to really see what your audience is really interested in.

As for me, I will continue to discover countless things that I still need to learn. I will also look forward to each day, knowing that another part of my interactive education is waiting for me .