Design has been domesticated into a polite, portfolio-friendly profession—sanitised, aestheticised, stripped of its teeth. But design was never meant to be safe. It was meant to expose, to question, to disrupt. If you want the comfortable version of “how to become a designer,” close this window now. If you want the real version—the one that burns away illusions, then read on.
You don’t become a designer by learning software.
You don’t become a designer by following trends.
You don’t become a designer by posting mockups on Instagram.
You become a designer the moment you realise this entire world is designed badly—on purpose.
The moment you see that most products are built to capture attention, not improve life.
That most interfaces are engineered to manipulate, not empower.
That branding is often theatre masking hollow systems.
That education has been industrialised into obedience training.
Designers are not decorators.
Designers are dissenters.
If you want to become a designer, stop polishing portfolios and start developing conscience.
Start asking the questions everyone avoids:
Who benefits from this?
Who is harmed by this?
What lie does this design reinforce?
Whose convenience is this serving?
Whose humanity is being ignored?
Paul Rand understood this. Behind the polite typography and corporate logos was a demand for clarity and honesty in a world built on noise.
Norman Potter understood it too: design is not a career; it is a moral stance.
Real design isn’t fashionable.
It isn’t glossy.
It isn’t safe.
Real design is dangerous.
It forces the world to reveal its mechanisms.
It disrupts the comfortable illusion that “this is just how things are.”
To become a designer is to refuse to be sedated by aesthetics.
To resist the seduction of empty style.
To look directly at the machinery of culture and say:
I will not decorate your dysfunction.
I will redesign the conditions that produce it.
If that sounds too intense, don’t worry, the industry is full of jobs for people who are happy to push pixels without asking questions.
But if the fire hits you, if you feel the world bending and breaking in ways that demand better, then congratulations: You’re already becoming a designer.
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