My friend and I sat down to do homework. He’s a finance major and I’m a design & merchandising major. He pulls up Microsoft Excel on his laptop. I pull up Adobe InDesign. As we both start on assignments, I briefly ask him his opinion on the brochure I was designing and afterwards he says, “I wish I was playing with colors instead of a bunch of numbers!”
Yes, I know my major can be more fun that reading a textbook—that’s why I chose it. However, with that comment you also cheapen what design majors do. We don’t just “play with colors.” We work with line, color, weight, and texture. We consider complimentary colors, figure ground relationships, typography, and whether or not we should use Helvetica. We work with Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop. We work hands-on with paints, India ink, fabrics, Bristol, and any other materials you can think of in order to create draw-dropping portfolios, hoping to set ourselves apart from the rest of the class. We don’t pull long hours in the library, but long hours in the studio. Just because we don’t have finals week, doesn’t mean that we haven’t been working the past two weeks on a project in order to please the subjective opinions of our professors for our final critique.
The next time you go see a movie because the movie poster drew you in—that was because of a graphic designer. You bought that product due to its unique packaging—well a graphic design major specializing in product development just saw the success of their designs. The next time you walk out of your favorite store with a new shirt—that was because a merchandiser chose to order that specific shirt for you to purchase. That cool building that has been around for years? Well an architecture major is the mind behind that lasting legacy. The ambiance inside your favorite restaurant, hotel, or even your own office buildings is the result of an interior designer. In essence, the way design majors work their craft will affect how you shop and what draws your interest even if you don’t realize it. The next time you see a design major working on some “fun homework,” don’t discredit them, because in their future career, their next project could change the course of how you live your life.
