Hasta La Ideas

Alissa Walker’s got a great interview with Dan Pink up on Dwell, author of A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future, and The Adventures of Johnny Bunko. In it, he talks about the importance of design literacy for non-designers–something that he says should be as important as teaching long division in schools:

I don’t mean that everybody has to be a great designer, but everyone has to be literate in it. In the same way I consider it up there with numeracy. That is, to be in business, let alone to be a fully-functioning member of a democratic society, you have to be numerate, you have to know a little math. I think the same thing is true now about design thinking: You don’t have to be a great designer, but you have to be design-literate. I think the capacity to explain what design is, to show what design is, to tell stories about design, to educate people about design, does a hugely important service. It’s actually helping designers by educating their clients for them.

One way to educate your clients? Pink talks about keeping a design journal, which he uses as a way to sketch out examples of good and bad design that he encounters throughout the day. But is it a Moleskine, we wonder?

Pink will be headlining Dwell on Design, on June 26-28 in LA, and Core77 readers can save $15 on Exhibition Plus with DWELL8B and $50 on Dwell Conference Plus with DWELL987M. Register at dwellondesign.com.

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