Two types of designers

I am blessed with the new member in our family and since then I have not been in touch with my online blog. There are many things that I have learned and would like to share with you in this blog, but that have to wait as time is precious, or should I put it, very limited to be use on other things apart from nurturing my baby.

This is another wonderful news, I finally completed my PhD, and gained the recognition to hold the title Dr.

That said, still I like to post a topic here, not only for you to think about but for me to continue writing it when I am able to organised my life again. I like to discuss about the term ‘design management’ and ‘design eduation’, on what does it mean to me and to the whole society.
Since May we been living in a beautiful Penang Island at the northern part of peninsular Malaysia. Moving from Melbourne to Penang is a big step but after living again in Penang,
the whole rediscovering Penang is rewarding. I started my lecturing job at School of the Arts,
University Science Malaysia or also known as USM, a prestige Malaysian science based university. The most interesting part of being here again after a long 9+ years living in abroad provide enough space for me to rediscovering the whole idea about Penang. As a designer, it is part of the practice to observe. I was very keen to explore these idea of design in Penang, for example, how design activities have evolved so far?, what is the most popular design topic in Penang, whose the local designers and so on. I also reconnect with wRega (Malaysian Graphic Design Association Kuala Lumpur), became a professional member and try to contributes some of my five cent senses in design with Malaysian designers.

During my exploration within the idea of design in Malaysia, I realised there are two types of designers in Malaysia. One is always the follower, the one that just agree with the main audience, the one that go with the main streams and the one that scared to stand on his own. This type of designers need someone else to hold on too. And most of the time this type of designers just focus on how to make more money by asking the question, “So what is it for me?”. Yes, I understand at the end of the day, that question need to be asked, but focusing only to it, also provides another meaning – selfish. This type of designers will try to accommodate and conform the general societies expectation.

The other one, the second type of designers, is the one that want to feel special through his work and most importantly, to be the first. Meaning, what ever he or she does have to be special and “no one else has done this before, I am the first one” have to be in somewhere. This type of designers tries so hard to be the first and to create something that no one else have done, that he or she forgot the whole ideas of creating design, the trill to explore, the excitement of creating and crafting, not to be part of the game of “I am the first that created this type of design”. And the most interesting with this type of designer is the comments he or she throws to the other designers, by comment
Since May we been living in a beautiful Penang Island at the northern part of peninsular Malaysia. Moving from Melbourne to Penang is a big step but after living again in Penang,
the whole rediscovering Penang is rewarding. I started my lecturing job at School of the Arts, University Science Malaysia or also known as USM, a prestige Malaysian science based university. The most interesting part of being here again after a long 9+ years living in abroad provide enough space for me to rediscovering the whole idea about Penang. As a designer, it is part of the practice to observe. I was very keen to explore these idea of design in Penang, for example, how design activities have evolved so far?, what is the most popular design topic in Penang, whose the local designers and so on. I also reconnect with wRega (Malaysian Graphic Design Association Kuala Lumpur), became a professional member and try to contributes some of my five cent senses in design with Malaysian designers.

Copyright by Nurul Rahman 2012
Penang Island. Copyright by Nurul Rahman 2012

During my exploration within the idea of design in Malaysia, I realised there are two types of designers in Malaysia. One is always the follower, the one that just agree with the main audience, the one that go with the main streams and the one that scared to stand on his own. This type of designers need someone else to hold on too. And most of the time this type of designers just focus on how to make more money by asking the question, “So what is it for me?”. Yes, I understand at the end of the day, that question need to be asked, but focusing only to it, also provides another meaning – selfish. This type of designers will try to accommodate and conform the general societies expectation.

The other one, the second type of designers, is the one that want to feel special through his work and most importantly, to be the first. Meaning, what ever he or she does have to be special and “no one else has done this before, I am the first one” have to be in somewhere. This type of designers tries so hard to be the first and to create something that no one else have done, that he or she forgot the whole ideas of creating design, the trill to explore, the excitement of creating and crafting, not to be part of the game of “I am the first that created this type of design”. And the most interesting with this type of designer is the comments he or she throws to the other designers, by showing how the work of other is not original and that lots of people have done similar.