Art vs. Design (Or: It's Not About You)

Once a month here in Denver, I meet up with the Artist Peer Critique group to share work, ask questions, and talk about creative processes in a judgment-free environment. While I don’t regularly show art at galleries or even sell my work, it’s been invaluable to have a like-minded group of creative people to talk with outside of the professional constraints of the design community.

Recently, we were chatting about the ways in which our professional lives intersect with the world of art, and my job as a UX designer spurred the question: What’s the difference between design and art?

While both are creative exercises that often lean on a common set of visual tools and principles, the key difference is in who they are for.

If you’re an artist, your art is—at its core—about you and your need to express yourself. Sure, there’s likely an audience involved, or even a patron, but they are secondary to your style, your eye, and your worldview. 

If you’re a designer, your design is not about you. It’s about the people who need a solution to a problem. When executed properly, design solves problems without ego. While your expertise and perspective matter, they matter less than a deep understanding of the need you’re trying to meet and the person you’re trying to meet it for. The more you can shed your biases and preconceptions and deeply empathize with your end user, the more successful your design will be.

Do the best designers have a distinct style and philosophy that are reflected in their work? Of course. But those things always take a backseat to the needs of the people actually using their products. A beautiful object that nobody needs is a failure of design.

Art is a prism through which you refract the world around you. Design is a lens that focuses on a solution.