Why and What is Design?

By Peter Lawrence on FastCompany.com

Design remains the most underutilized and misunderstood tool at the disposal of business.

Design is a user-focused, prototype-based development process that simplifies complexity and achieves success through collaboration.

One way to think of a designer is as somebody who has learned to speak a language that everyone understands but that the designer has been trained to speak.

Design is not art, it is not aesthetics, and it is not engineering. It's not the work of one person and it is not the solution to all of your problems. Although design is not art, it is still written about in the Arts & Leisure section of most major newspapers in the U.S. and abroad, and, to many executives, design is more about art than it is about business. But the truth is that design is "applied art" in the sense that it is applied to solve a particular problem or address a new opportunity.