design domain

Désigner. A French verb evolved into an English noun. The origins of the root word "désigner" follow the hackneyed onion metaphor so, brace yourself, I am going to whip that old dog and beat that little pony onto the stage again - on the outer layer of the root word, a design is an arrangement of lines and shapes to form an image or an ornamental pattern.

The next layer of the "design" root word onion, "design" means a drawing or plan to show how something should work.

It brings tears to your eyes, but "design" is also the making of the design drawing itself.

Peeling back another layer "design" means to plan for the desired outcome or the intention behind of a series of actions.

Any design project has components of all of the onion's layers.

A Design Brief defines the objectives and goals.

The Design Brief puts the process in context of the business problem and proposes solutions and schedules.

At this part of the process creative work begins and follows a series of submissions until the sales tool or website or advertising campaign meets the criteria established by the Design Brief.

Design for the Aboriginal market

The most pressing design problem is not to make any messaging to Aboriginal People look like it is expensive. It is considered a waste of money to pay for "fancy design and printing" when there is no drinking water on many Indian Reserves. So much so that there is an entrepreneur that markets water filters with the benefit that they entirely eliminate Giardia and Cryptosporidium as the most important sales benefit.

Explicitly mentioning the two water-borne parasites that typically infect the water system on the Reserves is done for a purpose: to make sales to the people who live there. So, full-colour printing is regarded as a scandalous waste by many people that live on Reserves where there is no potable water.

I met this young entrepreneur at the GoldCare Indutiae Business Mastermind Seminar for Aboriginal business people that took place over a number of months in 2000.

So to tread a line where humility and efficient modern design meet in an industry that counts in the tens or hundreds of thousands of copies is disingenuous, but often the kernel of the design brief: don't make it look expensive. I wonder how?

Cultural misappropriation

Other cultural considerations enter into design and communications targeted at this market include sensitivity to cultural misappropriation in any form and being knowledgeable enough to ask.

Say for example a client admires Salish graphic design, the Raven crest for example. Unless the artist is of the Raven clan he is not entitled to draw the Raven crest. This is only commonsensical, it is a family crest.

The hypothetical client needs an artist of the Raven clan in order to not misappropriate an important cultural and familial icon for monetary gain.