Whether or not you believe design to be art, it is not only it’s subjective qualities that recall art: the act of thinking of something, making it, putting it out there, waiting for response (this is not art, this is the act of creating). Response to what you have made often makes you aware of what Duchamp called the “art coefficient” the “unexpressed but intended and the unintentionally expressed,â€? i.e. what you meant to convey versus what the audience actually gets from the work.

Even the subjective can be broken down into objective questions. If I compare two works, equally well executed, I can ask “If the goal was to make me recall my own childhood (now lost), then this one is more successful. If it is to read a stream-of-conscious recollection of someone else’s abandoned activities, then this one is more successful….”

A hierarchy of intention and perception reifies the subjective.

When a design successfully fulfils the criteria for success we can look at it and say – that’s good. Dan, I agree that personal preference does come into play when presented with more than one good solution. However, I do not see personal preference as negating the merits and success of both designs.

While a designer and an artist are not the same, art is a component of design, especially visual design. Design inherents that subjectivity.

So given the scenario of two equally good solutions, the one that is perceived as better becomes and individual, or subjective, opinion.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Is design art?