LEAP on the blog

I was working on my final paper when I thought, hey what not creating a blog for LEAP as well. It’s free anyway, all you need is to spend some of your time to write posts on a regular basis.

So, there you go. A blog for LEAP that I hope can host our ideas, thoughts and reflections on design. Not just from the technical point of view or a showcase of what we can do and what we have done in the past i.e. portfolio. More importantly we need to share to the world at large and our society – what design is all about and what it can do (or don’t).

By now you might think, why do I have to care about it? Design is only a job, it pays me well (or not) and I can support my family and so on and so forth. I’ve been working in the design field for over five years now. During those years I have experiences ups and down, from zero to something (not a hero yet). I always believe the main reasons why I’m doing design is because love and passion. Of course having money and able to buy those fancy stuff also nice. But then you will have to ask yourself, what really makes you happy? I found myself happy when my team produce a great piece of design. I’m happy when they’re happy and feel sad (depressed to be exact) when they’re not.

I guess the point that I’m trying to raise here is the question of why are you doing what you’re doing right now, in my case is design. Previously I always thought that good design is a good business. Good design will always sells. It’s a bit too client-minded in which you are probably agree because they’re paying us to do the work for them. But then I stumble upon my final paper. At the time when the briefing session starts, I’m the only student who doesn’t have any idea at all what to write.

Then I saw this book written by David Berman, Do Good Design. I can say it inspires me to write what I’m currently writing for my final paper – Designers’ Social Responsibility. Funny that I never thought about it before; not just in the context of my study but most importantly in my short career as a designer. So fast forward a little bit, I found myself interviewing these different designers from North America, Hong Kong and (of course) Indonesia in my journey to write the paper. I have to thank my tutor for suggesting me to conduct these interview.

I will share my findings and thoughts in the next post.