Back in 2003, McDonald’s campaigned to have the meaning of the word “McJob” changed. Oh yes, it’s a real word, one that actually appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, defined as “an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector.”

While McDonald’s battled fiercely to have the definition changed³³, they were ultimately unsuccessful, prompting CNN to declare that “‘McJob’ is a word that’s here to stay.” While this is all well and good and feels like a triumph for those of us who cringe when we think of monolithic corporate chains, by this point you’re probably wondering what, exactly, the implications of this news (non-)story are for designers and practitioners of media. It isn’t that design jobs and entry-level media jobs are, in fact, McJobs (though I know it can certainly feel that way sometimes to young people just breaking into the business). The object lesson here is actually one of semantics, because it seems that we³³ lack consensus on the formal, operational definitions of several critical words that we bandy about carelessly on a daily basis.

So, starting with this entry, I will endeavor to create a more-or-less (probably less) comprehensive list of true operational definitions of words that seem to lack in consistent usage across the design and media fields.

Let’s start with perhaps the biggest one of all.

Design
Design is perhaps the biggest buzzword in business so far in the 21st century. Even business magazines like Fast Company and Inc. have devoted entire sections–sometimes entire issues–to the nebulous concept of design. That’s well and good and all, but what does “design” mean in such a context?

Usually when a business magazine talks about “design,” it appears in a sentence not unlike these:

• Design is a user-focused, prototype-based development process that simplifies complexity and achieves success through collaboration.³³
• Will Philips emerge as a shining example of an organization that fueled its renaissance with design, or as one that ultimately failed because it lost sight of its real objective?³³
• Think of the design food chain in fashion-industry terms, with Design Miami Basel as the equivalent of haute couture (Karl Lagerfeld’s stratospheric creations for Chanel, say) and the retailers exhibiting at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF) in New York, or mass retailers such as Design Within Reach, as the ready-to-wear collections (Lagerfeld separates at Bloomingdale’s).³³

At best, we see more-or-less accurate descriptions of the design process, but on the other end of the spectrum, design is equated to art and style. (We’ll get to those two in a minute.) These kinds of articles don’t really help to clarify what design actually is.

So… what is it?

I’ll give two definitions–design as a verb (that is, the act of designing) and design as a noun (that is, an object or artifact that has been designed). Let’s start with the OED again, since it is the authority on vocabulary in the English language.

The OED lists sixteen different possible meanings for design as a verb. The most relevant include these:

1. To form a plan or scheme of; to conceive and arrange in the mind; to originate mentally, plan out, contrive.
2. To purpose or intend (a thing) to be or do (something); to mean (a thing) to serve some purpose or fulfil some plan.
3. To plan and execute (a structure, work of art, etc.); to fashion with artistic skill or decorative device; to furnish or adorn with a design.

While slightly different, each of these definitions shares the common thread of creation for a purpose. We could say, then, that the definition of design (when used as a verb) is, simply put, creation of something for a specific practical purpose.³³ Logically, then, it would follow that design, when used as a noun, refers to objects–whether a logo, a tea kettle, or a Herman Miller Aeron chair–that resulted from the design process. That is, a “piece of design” is the “something” that was created for a specific practical purpose. Design as a verb is the action–design as a noun is the output.

Next up: That ever-wily idea of style.3

1. For what it’s worth, the OED added an etymological note stating that the word stems from “the name of the McDonald’s chain of fast-food restaurants, popularly regarded as a source of such employment.” You’ll note that the dictionary does not state that a McJob must be exclusive to McDonald’s; indeed, I suspect it’s quite easy to work an equally grueling McJob at, say, Burger King or Jack in the Box.333
2. When I say “we,” I am speaking in generic–perhaps too generic–terms about designers and media practitioners, with the emphasis really more on designers this time around.333
3. Peter Lawrence, “Why Design?,” Fast Company, March 2006.333
4. Jennifer Reingold, “Design Intervention,” Fast Company, October 2006.333
5. Linda Tischler, “The Future of Design,” Fast Company, July/August 2006.333
6. This is the primary difference between art and design; whereas objects that are the result of the design process are meant to have a practical purpose, objects that are the result of the artistic process do not necessarily need have a practical purpose–they may instead have aesthetic purposes, or no purpose at all.333

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