I think I should have a darn good reason for being a graphic designer. A purpose that drives me to get up in the morning and spend my day, as my friend Gabe calls it, “designustrating” with a fervor.

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 and Interesting and created for Real People.

A) Smart. Contrary to popular thinking in the advertising world, I believe that people are pretty smart AND 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 cells. Designing for the lowest common denominator is not only a crime but an insult. I want to design smart for smart people.

B) Interesting. I feel that in this so-called “Age of Information” people have tried to replace 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 ACTUALLY COMMUNICATE! It should surprise, delight, inform and reward. I want to create design that is genuinely interesting.

C) Real People. Okay, let’s do a test: I want you to make a list of specific things – products, foods, TV shows, movies, books, music – that every person you’ve ever met in your entire life loves. Like, loves.

Impossible, right? 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, because he doesn’t exist. I like to pinpoint exactly who I’m designing for, because that means that there will actually be a physical somebody who’s interested in the 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.