What is Design ? — Meet Sebastian

Hi everyone, long time no see, right? I'm slowly getting my way back to this blog after a few months of absence and preparing all of the new content and posts you're going to see this summer. Today, I want to introduce you to one of my friends and a great inspiration as a content creator: Sebastian.

He is the first writer of the Creativity Guest Post Event!

Sebastian is a photographer and designer that you can easily find on Instagram as sbstn_ervi.

---

Hi, my name is Sebastian. I study design in Paris and I've been an amateur photographer for a couple of years.

Firstly, let me make something clear. Design is not about making cool-looking stuff. It's about creating *good* stuff. One of the pioneers of good design in today's world is Apple. Their products are known as easy to use and fashionable. The reason why the iPhone's so popular is because that's what many people are looking for when buying a new smartphone.

Now that you've understood what *Design* is, let me tell you about "Design Thinking". To resume it briefly, Design Thinking is a succession of 3 steps :
- Defining
- Ideating
- Testing

Now think about it: you use it everywhere. Buying a new toaster? You first think about the needs you have: "it should work reliably and match my interior!" (DEFINING). Then you begin to wonder what your ideal toaster would look like (IDEATING) before looking at some and buying one to see if it meets the needs you just defined (TESTING).
Lost your TV remote (your need)? You make a list of places it should be (ideating) and then try to find it at each of these places (testing).

Whenever I've needed to find a solution to a problem, be it a small or a big one, I found myself more or less subconsciously using Design Thinking. As I'm studying digital design, I mainly think about this creative process when designing how to make a website easy and useful for the main users. In this case, the needs aren't always the same as mine! That's why I'm learning some techniques to understand what the end-users want. Or moreover, need. In fact, if the testing shows issues with the new product, designers should repeat the process over and over again until reaching the perfect design.

I use it in photography too. You now may tell me that photography is all about art, not design! Which is definitely not true. When taking photos for a music band, I need to think about :
- what kind of pictures the band wants (photos showing how cool and energetic the concert was?)
- what the fans would enjoy (their favorite artist striking a cool pose?)
- what I personally want to communicate of myself through the pictures (quality photos as close to perfect as possible).
Otherwise, I would be snapping everything that moves and randomly selecting photos.

To sum it up, my creative process is in fact, a design process. Design Thinking tries to describe the thinking process of a good solution. Creativity is, of course, a big part of it because we need great ideas to design great things, be it what your next lunch will be or how you will organize your best friend's party.

Feel free to ask me any questions or tell me your thoughts about my creative process!

Sebastian.

• Email : hello@sebastianervi.com
• Instagram : @sbstn_ervi
• www.sebastianervi.com

Meet Sebastian