Design and art might go hand in hand more than we imagine. Many designers get inspired by the day to day needs of our lives, but how many use art truly as an inspiration? How can art influence our thoughts and therefore our designs? I will try to lay down a few thoughts about that and I will start with the most simple question:
What is art?
Quite impossible to define it, but all I know is that art it's not about colours, images, sounds, words or feelings generated by these factors..., but about people, love and freedom in a given society. I like to believe that art is about the philosophy of freedom... because what's life without freedom if not slavery? More important than art is life itself, indeed, but before that, you can clearly see how much art has to do with our everyday problems. Art is not meant to help us evade the reality but to help us create a better reality... based on liberty, morality, altruism and voluntarism. It's obvious how art is tightened to most of our social aspects like liberties, private ownership, economics, free market of goods and ideas. Don't ignore reality by calling yourself simply an artist, but try to be a reality changer through that - an artisan, a trendsetter, an influencer, an inspiration for those among you live. Don't be the one who makes people dream, but be the one who turns their dreams into reality. Become the one who leaves his mark on all society's levels starting from the very bottom miseries we live in by being the buckling Atlas of our world. Art is a philosophy of life, of our actual life, not another imaginary life where we all like to run to sometimes, seeking for the unknown - that unknown that many wanderers(artists) forget to bring back to our own world so others can benefit from it. Art is the power of reason
Designer or artist?
Now I'm sure that we couldn't carry out a discussion of this sort without observing that the prototypic figure for the artist as well as for the scientist, is the designer who is a mix of technicalities and imaginary thoughts. The designer is the figure at the beginning of the human mystery that unites the scientist and the artist into a single notion of caregiving and creativity... I think that to whatever degree, art over the past century has wandered in the desert, it is because this designing function has been either suppressed or forgotten and the different images of the artist have been held up at different times... The designer as artisan, the designer as a handmaiden of a ruling class family, the designer as scientist for the production of integrated objects into civilisation... - this notion of the design artist as mystical journeyer, as one who goes into a world unseen by others and then returns to tell them of it, was pretty much lost... How are you going to regain that artistic notion into your very well calculated designs?
Regards, Peter Istrate.