The image that went viral, highlighting dangerous labelling practices.

If you’ve been browsing Reddit lately, you may have seen this picture on the first page. At first glance, like many people, I saw an innocuous picture of a bottle of fruit punch; but that’s just the problem. When you look a little closer, you realise that what’s in the image isn’t a bottle of juice, but a large bottle of cleaning fluid. Do I really need to extrapolate on the implications of a bottle of chemical cleaning solution that looks like a two litre bottle of fruit punch? As a designer, I’m used to people not understanding what I do. It seems like the public, and even some clients, are under the impression that the role of a graphic designer is simply to make something “eye catching” or “professional looking,” to give a product shelf-appeal, or help a small company look a little more credible and professional. Sure, that’s a big part of it. Many people don’t understand that designers do something more than that. What separates the wheat from the chaff in the design field isn’t the technical excellence and difficulty of their work. It isn’t even how beautiful their work is. What makes a great designer is their ability to communicate something, to achieve concrete, real-world objectives without saying a word. It’s the job of a designer to let someone, maybe a child, or an elderly person, know that this liquid is for cleaning, not drinking. It’s the role of a designer to help you navigate a website, filter through a text-heavy brochure, find your way out of the train station, help you differentiate emergency vehicles from ordinary traffic, avoid allergens on a menu when you go out to eat, et cetera. I have this to say to clients, or anyone considering hiring a designer: Good designers deal with these challenges every day. Before they put a pencil to their sketch-book they’ll have a crystal clear idea of what objectives they need to achieve in the time they have. If you’re thinking about maybe hiring a designer, consider whether you have the skills and experience to do this effectively yourself, when you’re up against competitors who hire people whose sole job is to design with purpose, to achieve real-world objectives and outcomes. To designers, I say this: Put your objectives first, and design with purpose. Remember that winning design awards is neat, but it’s not necessarily going to do your client a lick of good to have a solely “pretty” logo / brochure / landing page. Don’t design for designers, design for users, consumers, and businesses.