There is a sharp controversy among
the artists, designers and experts: is good website design an art? To
know it well, we should understand the difference between art and
design? What are the characteristics that separate one from the other?
Though, both the artists and designers create visual compositions, using
the best of their knowledge, experience and expertise, but the purpose
of their doing so is absolutely different.
Now let me discuss on these points:
1. Good art inspires and evokes emotion. Good design motivates.
A
good artist starts painting on a blank canvas and keeps doing so until
he can draw a complete picture of his feeling and thinking, taking the
elements that he thinks would definitely help him sharing his feeling
with the audiences in the most effective ways. An artist's intention is
to build a strong emotional bond between him and his audience.
On
the contrary, a designer's liberty is restricted by pre-assigned
message, idea, action, and the purpose of making the design. He has a
fixed point to start and end it. A designer's job is to discover
something with the elements that already exist and serve specific
purposes. His purpose is to motivate the audience to let them feel a
desire for doing something like buying a product or using a service.
2. Good Art is interpreted. Good design is understood.
Art
being a creation has no limitation. It cannot be circumscribed by any,
definition, explanation and interpretation. Therefore people with
different opinions, cultures, tastes, and levels of education explain an
art-work in different ways and viewpoints.
Say for example, the
great art-work Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci has been interpreted in
many ways by the Romantics, Scientists and Skeptics. Scientists say that
Mona Lisa's smiling is nothing but an illusion created by peripheral
vision. Romantics say Mona Lisa is in love. Skeptics say nothing
happens.
In contrast, the purpose of designing is to convey a
message and motivate audience to do something. So a designer's sole
purpose is to make people understand a message: what is the usefulness
of his products or services.
3. Good Art Is a Taste. Good Design Is an Opinion.
Art
is a taste that results in various opinions. Say for example, a piece
of art seems to one good or bad depending upon his taste, liking and
disliking. If he is a champion of modern art, a piece of traditional art
will seem to him age old and obsolete.
Design, too, depends upon
taste. But the difference is that a design is considered successful and
good only when it can fulfill its purpose of motivating people for doing
something.
