Redefining Design.
From occupation to driver of innovation.

For too long, a niche discipline has laid claim to a fundamental human endeavor that spans history, geography, race and religion. Granted, those of us involved in the commercial arts — whether it be communication, product, experience, transportation, architectural, landscape or another discipline have focused and honed our natural instinct for design by turning it into a craft to be practiced as a professional service for a fee or otherwise.

By virtue of our intimate knowledge of and experience with design, we become designers on a professional level, but there is a more fundamental level, and that is what interests me the most about design and its potential to transform the way we humans interact with one another as well as with our environment.

Those in business, academia, law, science, homemaking and all manner of other pursuits unaffiliated with the design profession engage in that which we call design on a daily basis, yet they have not taken the time to hone their inherent sense of design to make the most of their unique contribution to the overall human struggle.

My role, as I see it, is to evangelize the fundamental aspect of design for those who do not call design their profession.

What is design? Quite simply, it is a Creative Problem Solving Process. I initially presented this idea in a paper I published in 2002, and I am re-releaseing it as a PDF document free to share without alteration and by attribution per Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Design is Fundamental because each one of us — each human being — is born with the capacity to

1. think creatively
2. question convention when faced with an obstacle or problem
3. apply creativity to solving a problem and
4. engage in a process to continually improve their situation.

Design is Fundamental because it belongs to humanity, not to a profession.

Design is Fundamental because if honed, it can empower anyone to help make our world a better place.