Design Feast Series: Designer’s Quest(ionnaire)

Juliette Cezzar

Designer, Educator, Author

Primary design concentration:

I’m a comprehensivist

Most preferred tools for designing:

Face-to-face conversation

How and why did you choose to become a designer?

I was 23 and adrift when I went to see my former boss about a freelance project I was working on. At some point during the conversation, he said, “Why don’t you just become a graphic designer?” It sounded really awful to me at the time, but it planted the seed. About a year later, I was working in MoMA’s design department and just thought… I like graphic designers. They are nice people. Once I had applied to graduate school, I was committed.

What are some of the challenges you encounter as a designer and how do you deal with them?

The most challenging and most exhilarating part of being a designer is that your role in a project is always undefined. Sometimes I am the taskmaster, sometimes I build the content, sometimes I am a brand strategist, sometimes I am an art therapist, sometimes I am a production artist. 

What is your definition of an “elegant solution,” that is, good design?

A made thing that communicates the thinking that went into its making.

From skills to values, what makes a designer successful?

Empathy.

How do you stay motivated and grow personally and professionally as a designer?

Being a designer, like being an artist, means you subscribe to a thought pattern that stretches to everything you do. In everything that I take on, I try to set up a situation where I have no choice but to find a new way to approach it, whether that has to do with nurturing a new kind of relationship, learning a new process, or developing new habits.

For those aspiring to become a designer, whatever the discipline, what is your advice?

Make it your lifelong goal to figure out the difference between what you want, what other people want you to want, and what other people want. Life is too short to chase other people’s dreams at any scale. Too many people become mediocre designers when they would much rather do something else; too many other people become mediocre at something else when they would be fantastic designers.

What is your quest in design, from a professional practice, education or evolution standpoint?

To have everyone, starting with graphic designers, see what a smart and challenging discipline this really is right now. There’s never been a time before when people have been so interconnected. There is so much more communication, there are so many more possibilities for the form of that communication, and the form of that communication now matters so much. Anything is possible.

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