A while back, I was pondering the reason that everyone and their cousin thinks they’re a designer. I think it comes down to exposure.

When we’re talking design, you’re exposed to it from birth (pretty much). I mean, we’re bombarded with things that were at one point designed. From forms, to ads, to the bottle the formula comes in. It’s all design.

No so much with something like accounting or programming languages. Most of us didn’t have a checkbook when we were kids… which pretty much guarantees that we’ll treat people who’re good at less accessible things like accounting with reverance for their “black art.”

So, everyone’s a designer. I had this problem at my last job. The problem is, the buck didn’t stop anywhere either. I was told at least twice that we “weren’t big enough” to have a person appointed creative director. Um… are you ever too small to have someone in charge of the direction of the company’s “touch points?” I don’t think so.

You can be too small to have a person who’s JUST a creative director. But that doesn’t mean you can’t appoint someone (anyone) to oversee the creative direction of the company. In fact if you don’t, you’re heading for a shitstorm of the first order.

Not having someone in charge of the creative direction is like not having a CEO… sure, it might work for a while, but anarchy is no way to run a business… and unfortunately true democracy isn’t either. Hell, true democracy isn’t even how you run a country.

So, if you’re sitting around thinking you can design by committee, let me be the first to tell you you’re on the road to looking like crap.