Design is everywhere. Beyond interfaces, design is in every aspect of our lives, from the things we use, the environment we are in, the food we eat, and even our relationship with people. As designers, our responsibility exceeds far beyond making things functional and aesthetically pleasing, we must also consider how our design impacts other aspects of the world, which is why it is super valuable for a designer to have knowledge in other fields. For example, the Eameses are most known for their work in furniture design, but they also worked in other areas such as sculptor, architecture, graphic design, textile design…, the list can go on and on.
Luckily, different fields of design all stem from a common language. Practicing one discipline in design will make it easier for a designer to learn another. Fundamental concepts such as layout and contrast could be applied to all sub-categories of design. One such example would be how the Eameses’s work in furniture design heavily benefited from sculpture works, which enabled them to incorporate organic and fluid 3-dimensional curves in their furniture design works.
