there is something intensely satisfying about design. and i’m not only talking about graphics. when i think of design, it takes on many meanings, but at its core, i think design is, more or less, the way things are put together. and this entails the amount of care and effort a designer puts into it.

of course, on a daily basis, we mostly associate design with the visual because the first thing we do with things is look at it. but good design – and i’ve found that this always holds true – is not so much the aesthetic value of the end product, but all the work that has gone into making the end product feasible and meaningful.

take interior design, for example. you can load your room with the nicest paints, the most expensive furniture, and the most ambient lights, but if there is no application of design skill, your room becomes a mere warehouse. there is no unifying expression of these elements that is suppose to constitute a well-designed room. the same goes with many other things – websites, magazines, buildings, cities, hair, etc. this is why a lover of design should not limit himself to just one area – a lover of design appreciates all design because the same basic principle of care, effort, planning, and skillful execution are all there. and if you are able, you will find ways, either consciously or subconsciously, to embed intellectual expressions into your work: a drawing may contain irony or satire on various levels; a clay model may represent a post-modern condition ; a color scheme for a room may be an homage to a description in a famous novel.

this is probably one of the reasons i love films. while films are not often associated with design, i always find myself viewing film as one of the ultimate expressions of design; where else can you incorporate style, realism, narrative, the arrangement of sets and bodies, the technology of cinema, and the psychology of the viewer all into one neat piece of art? it is a design medium that requires the totality of a designer’s faculties as an artist and coordinator. no wonder it takes so many people to create films. and a good film is often a rare find.

i sit in my cubicle each day and execute another kind of design. it is one done on Microsoft Excel, the bane of an analyst’s existence, as many would say. it involves capital structures, collateral portfolios, and various mechanisms that measure interest and principal payments along with the hedges and waterfalls. believe it or not, there is an incredible amount of design that goes into the process, not only in the way you execute Excel to carry out the various functions, but in the way things are laid out for others to understand and the methods of combining all the little pieces into some complex, well-oiled structure. sure, the glory of the product being shown on the silverscreen is absent, but underneath, there is an eery similarity to it all. it is just about adjusting to the language and being willing to express yourself in a different way. each day, i find myself making this transition little by little, and while there are moments of frustration when an endless sheet of numbers just doesn’t make any sense, the feeling is often not too far off from the experiences of sitting alone with a pile of tapes wondering how i’ll ever cut up and edit a film that bears any meaning.

in the end, a good design is a good design, no matter where you find it.