“The craft of graphic design is replete with ratios, rules of thumb, and mathâ€â€all an attempt to rationalize decisions that otherwise fall to subjectivity. Finding justification for design decisions is important to meâ€â€I want to bring purpose and intent to my work and depend less on taste and opinion. But I often find myself designing on impulse or intuitionâ€â€pushing pixels around the screen or lines down a sketchpad with no structure, no rationalization just because it ‘looks right’. That haphazard and experimental process gives me a lot of freedom, but it isn’t really design.
I asked Mark Boulton, Andy Budd, and Jeff Croft, three designers I deeply respect, about designing on impulse versus intention. They each had something different to say, but they each presented a design process far more rationalized and justified than my own…”