Understanding Our Profession

We are designers. We devise courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.

A designer’s main strength is problem-solving; everything else is an acquired skill.

We design by coding things with somewhat predictable ways, not all the possible predictable ways. We are code builders; we are not blueprint producers. And as infrastructure designers, we live the triple-f credo “form follows function” keeping in mind the road users as well as the construction engineers.

We understand that a main point of difference between design and science is that of time. Scientists operate in a world that exists in the present. Mathematicians are independent of historical time (abstract). Designers treat what exists in the imagined future as real.

Designers go beyond the analytical process that produce either/or choices to produce new alternatives using their Integrative Thinking and abductive intelligence. We apply lateral thinking and we are not playing with the existing pieces, but seek to change those very pieces. We create emotions. Reason leads to conclusions; emotion leads to action.

We, as road designers, all want to be judged by how good we are when we’re at our creative best. But the real test is how good we are when we’re at our creative average. Hemingway once said there are no failures of talent, only failures of character.

Clients hire designers, not designing firms; each professional has to develop the practice.

Tags: Design Leadership