Wake Up, Good Design Isn't About Decoration!

My jump off point for this post is a genius blog post by Garr Reynolds over at www.PresentationZen.com. He's a spiffy guy, please read his post.

I would say the biggest misconception about the graphic designer is that their job is to make things look pretty. Is this really why you hire them though? In Garr's post he makes a statement that sounds all too familiar:

"Design — even graphic design — is not about beautification. Design is not just about aesthetics, though aesthetics are important. More than anything, design is about solving problems or making the current situation a little better than before. Design is not art, though there is art in design."

A graphic designer's true objective should be to focus on a tangible goal to achieve. In most cases this tangible goal is to grow bottom line revenue, however this goal could also grow membership, publicize a cause, or find your lost dog Snuffy.

Design doesn't come easy, your designer doesn't just go to the computer and create shapes; creating visuals is about 5% of his or her job. The other 95% of his job is problem solving to find visual answers, and better understand what you audience will relate to. There must be some level of attractive display, but this should never be the top priority. I have seen plenty of design projects in my day that were beautiful but failed to accomplish company goals. (Maybe there were no goals to begin with, maybe the project was one of those things "we have always done")

What questions could be asked before the process begins to avoid these problems? How much more could companies achieve by leveraging great design? What good questions should be asked to make sure design focuses on achieving goals?