People should have a darn good reason for doing the work that they do. A purpose that drives you to get up in the morning and spend your day working with a delight and a fervour.

And I do have a few darn good reasons. Some strong beliefs that get me riled up about the visual world that we live in. In a sentence, I believe that design should be Smart, Interesting and created for Real People.

A) Smart. Contrary to popular thinking, I believe that most people are pretty smart AND (perhaps more importantly) that everyone has the potential to get smarter. The more people get used to smart design, the faster they’ll get at exercising those smart brain cell muscles. Designing for the lowest common denominator is not only a crime but an insult. I want to design smart for smart people.

B) Interesting. In this so-called “Age of Information” people have begun replacing meaningful content with sheer quantity. People don’t know WHAT they’re trying to communicate or WHY, which spawns (shock!) a lot of design that leads no-where and communicates no-thing. Slogging through this sort of design is incredibly disheartening and most of all, boring. Another design crime, if you ask me. Design should surprise, delight, inform, reward and serve a real purpose. I want to create design that is genuinely interesting.

C) Real People. This kind of ties into points A and B, but real people are so darn interesting. We evade neat categories. We have unexpected and unrelated interests and passions and senses of humour.

You can’t design for the Every Man or Woman, because he or she doesn’t exist. I like to pinpoint exactly who I’m designing for because that means that there will actually be a specific somebody who’s interested in the specific thing that I’m creating. It means that I’m designing with a purpose. And that makes me feel good. I want to design for real people.