Design Can Save Your Life

When thinking about a design exhibition that solely showcases design principles and works, the possibilities for the overall message are endless. However, when I think about design and what I want others to know about it, I think of the small rules that we, as designers, follow and know by heart. I think about how ingrained into society it is and thus how invisible it can be the untrained eye. When I first entered the design program my eyes were opened to an entirely new world that I didn’t know existed before, this made my future a lot more exciting in terms of my career path. This is an experience I would like others to experience, to see how wide the world is with design in it. 

The final wordmark that I created for the exhibition is very simple, however, the whole point of this exhibition is to make design easier to understand for those who aren’t involved in it. I wanted the exhibition to focus more on design as an entity within our societies, how important it is in making the world better, safer and easier to understand. This wordmark uses two typefaces, Brandon Grotesque and Futura PT. The choice of these typefaces was not simply for aesthetic appeal, they also subtly show the variety within the world of typefaces and the hope of the exhibition is that once you have experienced the whole of it you will recognize that these are not the same. 

For the exhibition "Guiding Principles: Life in Design," the whole message revolves around how we are living in design, as a designer and as a society. "Life in Design," is meant to sound as though the exhibition is about one designer, but once the audience enters, they will quickly realize that it is about much more. 

I would like the exhibition to be informative and inspirational, containing some of the guiding principles of design, as well as, the work of designers, both new to the practice and the experts. Upon entry, the audience will begin to learn some basics of design, both visual communication and industrial design. These will include typographic vocabulary, some do's and don't's of each practice, these exhibits will include interactive features to encourage the audience to become more involved with the design. The point of this section of the exhibition is to show the audience that design is not nearly as scary as they initially may have thought, but also to show them that it is more involved and intricate than they might have been led to believe prior. 

Once the viewers get upstairs the main focus would be on the actual work of real-life designers, this would consist mainly of those who attend or work at the University. I would like the exhibits to really show the depth of the practice of design, showing how many facets of design there are, these would include, type, illustration, book, web, furniture, object, medical, information, fashion, photography, etc. The point of this part of the exhibit is to further open the eyes of the audience to show how much of what they interact with each day is designed. This is important to me because this program has opened my eyes to how many opportunities there are within this career path.