Having a Style In Design Is a Responsibility

Copying other designs makes your style stronger in time

Whether you studied design or brought up in an office environment, your personal aesthetic and taste reflect in your designs. In other words, you have succeeded to create your own design language in time such as a number of design principles that can be noticed in designer’s projects. All the questioning about “Design and Art are different things” become meaningless at this point because designers tend to develop a style of their own just like artists. Even though it’s a controversial topic, the main theme that all of us should be focused on is when and on which projects designers reflected themselves.

As designer students, we are interfered with by a lot of rules and principles while studying. But we acknowledge that knowledge is unfailingly a crucial point. That’s why right before ignoring the design principles, it would be wiser to learn them I could say. We are all familiar with Picasso, so let’s take a look at his reference.

Designers who are interested in collages during their school years must first find a role model for themselves and imitate it. Keeping doing collages lets them o have a unique style inevitably. This process is the same with agencies. In fact, after agencies adopt that style so deeply, a brand might prefer to work with them just for that unique style.

All those famous designers we follow on this road, were in fact adopt their customer’s desires before finding their own style. Let’s get exclusive shall we: Paule Scher.

The journey from Lines to Letters

Paula has been a graphic designer for over 40 years. She lives in New York, which we can call the capital of design, and has had an opportunity to work with popular culture brands. It is likely to come across Paula’s design in every corner of the city. Or the Pentagram designs, in which she is a part of it, are all over the city. One of the most famous works of Paula is her corporate identity work for The Public Theaters. Thanks to this work, her uniqueness is proved and differentiated from her previous works.

But Paula’s style wasn’t like that when she first started. She was more interested in illustrations and even got educated about it. Later, in the 60s-70s generation when every young person dreamed of being young at that time, she got lucky and found a job at CBS Records. CBS Records was the place where she had the opportunity to experience work in different fields. There are colorful illustrations and a large photographs and small typography in some of her projects maybe because that time was the time she found her voice of her own.

Compromise is the key

During this period, Paula established her style by means of Pentagram. However, the point we should pay attention to is the projects she was involved in before in which she played with typography without insisting on just one style and most importantly prioritize the needs of the customer. Every designer can face such tough bends. What really matters is to create healthy communication with clients. If you choose not to, endless meetings never come to an end. And if you choose to create things with your own unique style, no matter which projects, you’ll have to deal with making them accept your ideas rather than creating. And this, my friend, is proof of having style in designs is a responsibility.

Today, many designers and brands are evolving into an age-appropriate design language. It is likely to harmonize your style into this age considering this. Let’s make a closure with “Good design is long-lasting!”