How to Use Design Principles to Live a Better Life

Design is all around us. An architect designed the room that you’re in right now. An interior decorator may have designed its interior. An engineering team and a design team worked together to design the phone or the computer that you’re reading this on. A web designer designed this very website.

You may not realize it, but these design choices affect your life every day. You can quickly and easily navigate to your friend’s new house because of the great design choices made in the Google Maps app you use. You’re uncomfortable at work because of the poor design of that chair you hate (you really need to speak to H.R. about that).

You may not think of your daily comforts and discomforts as having to do with to design, but if you take a moment, you can trace many of them back there: how pleasant it is to walk through your favorite park, how hard it is to find the right product in a local shop, why you hate using one type of operating system but love using another. Design matters, and it can help you live a better life - or force you to live a worse one.

More of the world’s design decisions are out of your hands: you can’t change how your local shop is laid out or how your favorite operating system works. But you can use design to improve other things in your life.

You may not think of interior design as something you need. Who cares? A home is just a place you live. You don’t know anything about paint or furniture.And what is a duvet? Is that the thing in the bathroom with the water jet? (It is not.)

But interior design isn’t necessarily about nerding out over drapes. It’s about comfort and functionality. And, like many types of design, it doesn’t announce its presence loudly. It’s a subtle thing. Interior design isn’t just working in stuffy places like Buckingham Palace. It’s also present in your favorite local tavern. Bars use low lighting and comfortable booths to create a functional and comfortable space, and that’s all that interior design is.

So consider hiring an interior decorator. You won’t have to understand what’s happening when he or she rearranges your furniture, but you’ll feel the results when you use your space afterwards. Suddenly, it may feel as if there is more space in your room. You may find that you can walk around more freely, and that your favorite spaces are easier to move between and use - the chair closer to your bookshelf, the couch arranged perfectly for conversation, the table easier to reach from the cooking area. Your living room may feel more relaxing, and you may wake up a bit more quickly as you prepare breakfast (it’s the colors of the walls and the decorations your designer has chosen - but don’t worry about the how, just enjoy the why). Design will have improved your life.

There’s more to life than work, but life is easier when work is going well. And if you want great results for your business, you need to invest in design.

Design is what helps new consumers get acquainted with your product or services. You wouldn’t see a heavy metal concert poster using the same font as the sign on your local day care, and you wouldn’t see a doctor’s office using a heavy metal font in their ads. Those are extreme examples, but subtler cues matter, too - and you’ll need a designer to identify and use them.

You’ll also need a designer to design your website. Modern consumers make many of their decisions online, and having a great website is essential. No, not just “a website” - a great website. A website that communicates the right things about your brand, that draws customers in, and (this is important) looks as good on a mobile device as it does on a computer. All of this takes design.

You may not have the same design budget as a major corporation, but you can still make an investment and see real results.