Compare and contrast

      Before becoming a design major student in Davis, I struggled on deciding which emphasis of art or design to major. First of all, between UC Davis and UC San Diego, I had a hard time choosing  which school to attend because they are all related to art in a sense. Despite the difficulty, after I went over both majors’ curriculums, I found out that classes required for design and for art studio are completely distinct of one another. Therefore, I have realized my image of design and art as the same subject was wrong. Although Design and art to share common knowledge and techniques, they are considered different entities.

       In the world of art and design, some people often combine art and design together and state the two are interchangeable. Even though both art and design share the same knowledge base and methods and carry aesthetics senses within themselves, the purpose of art and design is not the same. The basic purpose of art is to express one’s feelings or emotions through the practice, and sometimes describes the current environment experienced by the artist. In other cases, art can even serve as a tool for mental-recovery. Furthermore, art sometimes requires more interpretation than design. Art in many cases are not meant to be understood by the general but by a few chosen individual.

       On the contrary, most designs intend to serve a specific purpose. Designers use the same technique as artists such as drawing and painting; however, unlike art, design is less personal and more genearal. The purpose of design is to convey messages to others by using the same skills or medium art uses. In addition, design has a clear purpose. For example, looking at FedEx iconography, the design tells people that the FedEx company is reliable and fast. Therefore, in order to send the right messages to viewers, designers create designs tangible to that specific purpose along with aesthetic sensibility, enabling  the correct message to be send out.