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Quoted: Jennifer Morla on Design Matters

During recent commutes to work, I’ve been listening my way through old episodes of Design Matters with Debbie Millman (iTunes / SoundCloud) – a podcast in which Debbie Millman interviews well-known designers. This past week, I listened to the Jennifer Morla episode from 2011. Jennifer Morla – President and Creative Director of Morla Design and recipient of the 2010 AIGA Medal – is full of design wisdom accumulated through years of experience. Below are some highlights from the episode that resonated strongly with me.

By surprising first and informing after. So, how you branch beyond your constituency is, really, doing an alternate view of what design is expected within that category. —19:30

Oftentimes I say that words are as powerful as images, and images can be more powerful than words. Because I think that, especially young designers, they don’t realize how important words are, really, and how they can be the the actual structure to your piece or the concept to your piece. —20:26

I think whenever you can engage the audience in actually a physical way, you will have more meaningful relationship and communication with them. —23:19

People love to be educated. They love to know things. I mean that want of knowledge certainly happened, let’s say, within the wine industry. … It’s that sort of education that brings value to the product itself. —26:32

Art is very different than design beecause with design, there’s always two people involved. Somebody has to pose something to you and you are creating, somewhat, a response. It’s a response. I don’t even know whether it’s solving a problem. I like to say it’s more of a response to what’s being proposed. —31:06