But from time to time I come across designers whose work isn’t boring, and when I do I want to work with them. As this happens more, I've noticed some common factors. It’s not an issue of personality... I take it for granted that there is a gene in designers that 1) gives them a craving for everyone to think they’re right on target and 2) once everyone agrees with them, makes them change their mind. This gene isn’t all bad; in fact, it can be good... because every idea gets challenged with its opposite, and then pushed toward a better final product. What’s more, it’s a trait that writers have too. Our advantage, however, is that most people these days consciously notice design: “This is cool. I want to make out with the designer!”... while they are less conscious about their absorption of the copy: “I should buy/ believe/ befriend this.” (Oddly enough, even this trend is part of the evolution of design history -- 150 years ago a book’s jacket was, at best, of secondary importance).

I should also point out that it doesn’t have a lot to do with clients. Yes, picking the right client makes all the difference to designers. But to your creative collaborators, it’s often less about what it's like to work with the client and more about what it's like to work with you. By and large I see clients like parents ... you’re not responsible for what you’re given by them, just for what you do with it.

What I look for is a designers who recognizes that design always, always fails. Always comes up short, can never quite accomplish what it’s trying to do/say. This is not trailing into some pseudoacademic rant about the arbitrary nature between signifier and signified. It’s deeper than that. It’s something Faulkner wrote about words, that took me years to understand: “words are a shape to fill a lack.”

Designers are by their nature obsessed with the material. Yet their goals of communication, beauty, expression are immaterial, stretch beyond the material. The best designers, like the best priests, understand that designers and audiences alike are able to tap the transcendent only able to tap the transcendent through the concrete . And we know that this concrete world is full of death and half-resolution and insufficiency, as well as beauty and ideas worthy of expression.

One thing that separates a great designer from a good designer is the ability to create the best design possible out of concrete materials, while knowing that it will always fall short of its transcendent goal. This produces the same sort of beauty that we find in the blues -- another communication familiar with the dissonant harmony of yearning beyond this life for a better one, combined with love of this world. When Hooker's voice is slightly off key and off rhythm, by missing the written note, he produces something that is in its context even more beautiful and more meaningful.

So if any of my creative collaborators are reading this... this is why I see our work as worthwhile. Of course, we do live in the material world. So if you’re a designer I’m not working with, and are paying upward $100 an hour for copywriting, please don’t read this post. I’d love to work with you.

Great piece, though I'm not sure how I feel about your sentiment in the 2nd paragraph. I'd say many folks recognize design (in some sense), but that doesn't imply they recognize good design. I spend a significant portion of my day arguing and fighting for design (which is hopefully good). I'd say one out of every three of those conversations begin with pointing out that there is this "thing" called "design" out there. Doesn't take long to get them to realize this, mind you, design after all being everywhere. That being said, I don't find myself in a world where most folks are into "design".

I think the recognition of the fundamentals of good design is a natural reaction. Just as you can look at a chair and tell if it's safe to sit in or a building is safe to enter - you can access the fundamentals of good design at first glance and tell the good from the bad.

Past these fundamentals though, I would agree with Josiah that recognition or appreciation of design as “good” depends on how far that design migrates past these fundamentals; becoming more dependant upon the cultural/educational/vernacular situation of the audience. In the cases where you’ve moved past basic design principles to visually communicating cultural juxtapositions or other more subtle clues messages get lost on those out of the know. This does not make the design bad or the audience less appreciative of good design, it merely points out communication gap between the audience and the designer - one that either needs to be addressed by redesign or education of the audience.

To me it’s really no different than theatre, comedy or copywriting – once any of these moves past human fundamentals, they begin to rely on the audience to have some contextual cultural understanding in order to “get it.”

Peace.

the medium is the massage remember? if the audience doesn't notice the design then it is probably good design. seamlessly humming along in the background and yet inseparable from the content being served up. its a good thing. it means its working.

Interesting comments. Bad and boring design sometimes overlap, but aren't the same thing. And I actually disagree about good design going unnoticed... IMO that's more often (but not always) true in product design and interior design than graphic design, where human scale is often the most important factor.
In today's marketing frenzy spectacular spectacle, when the design itself gets noticed, and then adds layers of meaning to the communication, that is the best (and approaches what I am saying about tension of striving for transcendent + loving this world).
An example from this site, and the piece that made me eager to work with Paul, is the overprinted menu he did for the Chummery. At first the viewer's experience is overwhelming but when you either stop and stare, or back up and take in the big picture, it dejumbles into meaning. This was especially cool given that this was a core value to the Chummery - inviting people to take time out of the busyness of life to enjoy some ice cream. What's cooler than cool? Ice cold (props to Andre 3K).

I def. think there's a distinction between "good" design and great design (boy, isn't that profound). I think "great" design should be arresting.

Heck, if my mother, who doesn't know a thing about design, can sit there fascinated by the iPod or the Clumpies website, then damnit, great design is real and should be aspired to.

There is no such thing as good or great design. Only right design or wrong design.

Michael, I'd love to run with that sentiment, but I'm not sure I have the stamina to handle the, I'm loath to admit, sacrifices made on design project on behalf of the client. Does that make it wrong because it's, IMO, less right?