Bob Gill’s “Design as Idea” class is about helping students and professionals produce work that is original and communicates effectively.

The Process
Gill says, “The hardest thing is not to be influenced by the Culture, which tells everyone how good design is supposed to look. As everyone is given the same preconceptions about what’s hot and trendy, how can they do original work? Unless they ignore the Culture, they can’t.”

His process is deceptively simple. Regardless of how familiar the designer is with the subject of the job – say, a logo for a dry cleaner – the designer must appreciate that all of the information was planted in his head by the Culture. You cannot look inside of your head, or sit at a computer, or look at design books for inspiration. There’s nothing original there.

You have to go out to the dry cleaner, and act as if you know nothing about dry cleaners.Talk to customers, talk to the man behind the counter, check out the equipment, and so on – until you have something really interesting (original) to say about dry cleaning. After you have made an original statement, listen to the statement. It will design itself, well almost.

Here are some examples of Gill's unique solutions:

The Project: Self Potrait
By portrait, substitute "statement of yourself". Forget what it should look like, just concentrate on saying "something" genuinely interesting about yourself.

Jeff Young

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