Save The World: Can Design Save The World

Can design save the world? To begin answering the question, we have to first gain a common understanding of what design is, and what defines saving the world.

Design in itself is a very broad term and has generated many definitions. According to Todd Johnston, the Head of Design for the Global Innovation Summit in Silicon Valley, “to design is to mark out a pattern as a means of making of an experience. A design marks out a vision for what can be; the act of designing is to move with intent to close the gap between existing condition and that vision.” (Hwang, 2014) According to Joel Spolsky, a software engineer and writer, design is about creating something while making compromises. He also mentions that when designing something, there will

Before saving the world, we first have to understand each other in order to reach a common goal. From the above points, we can understand that graphic design does serve as a means of visual communication which helps in bridging barriers amongst people. “One of the most important roles for graphic design in the future will be to help us to make sense of what’s happening in the world around us by interpreting developments in science and technology in a visual language we can understand.” (Rawsthorn, 2010)

Design as an Influencer

Design can influence the way people think. Communication theorist Marshall McLuhan argued that the “medium is the message” as “it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action”. (McLuhan) With this in mind, we can then review the effect advertisements have on consumers, and how it influences the choices consumers make.

Through the aesthetics of advertising posters and campaigns, we as consumers find ourselves compelled to serve a certain cause because of the way information was presented to us. In a way, graphic design in advertisements tell us what it is that we want, before we even know that we want it. This notion echoes the idea that Steve Jobs once famously claimed, that “people don't know what they want until you show it to them” (Businessweek.com,