Readings Week 3

 The Designer as Producer

Even though big companies will always dominate the market, it is increasingly common, and easy, to create and market our own products as an independent designer. Our job is no longer just to make a package, or an advertisement, or whatever. We can create whole experiences. With the resources available now, we can prototype our work and send it off to be created somewhere for a reasonable cost. We are now entrepreneurs, creating all elements of a product.


Birth of the User

Text is something that is more universal than icons, and it can cross the boundaries and limitations of language. In an screen-based experience, users are more interested in quick absorption of information rather than long periods of reflection time. It is all about being as quick and productive as possible. Of course, while they are using the web, there is also an opportunity for the designer to collect information from the users.


Graphic Authorship

In the past, graphic designers took their clients information and turned it into whatever the client wanted. But now designers are taking a more involved, active role in the process. Perhaps they realize that what they client wants is not what they need, and alters the message and the design to better suit. In this way, we are now creating our own sort of authorship that we did not have before. In order to be graphic authors, we must take control of both the design and the writings in the design. It's not a matter of copy and pasting someone else's message into the frame we make for it, but deciding the best message to coexist and complete the experience we make for it.