14 Why Art and Design Matter

My entrance into art began with a Saturday morning storytelling hour on a local television station that I watched as a kid growing up just outside of Philadelphia. I was about five when I discovered The Gene London Show. Gene would draw pictures — while narrating a story — on the largest drawing tablet I had ever seen. The stories were about faraway places, people, and animals and always provided a sense of wonder about the world — vast and beautiful in its diversity. As Gene told the story, I was delighted to see him create pictures of forests and gardens and the characters inhabiting them. Through seemingly random marks, images slowly appeared as lines and shapes connected, and suddenly, a final picture appeared — bringing his words to life.

These pictures told a story in a way that the spoken word on its own could not. The drawings animated the actions of the characters, their costumes, and the lands in which they dwelled. This experience of art making stories more meaningful fueled my love for drawing and its ability to help me make sense of the world. From middle school through high school, art classes felt like the one place I excelled. And my drawing abilities helped me succeed in other classes. Drawing maps helped me understand the places and journeys of historical figures. An anatomy drawing of a grasshopper helped me remember all its parts from the thorax to the abdominal segments.

But other subjects seemed to baffle me — especially math. That is, until eighth grade when my teacher took a new approach to teaching math. She used charts, graphs, and plot points to provide clarity for learning math through spatial relationships between objects as well as the shape of single objects. But she also used charts to showcase our individual progress. Learning to visually create and read a chart that depicted my progress in the class was a compelling motivator for me. Earning a red dot that could be placed next to previously accumulated red dots representing three successfully completed exercises compelled me to add even more red dots. “Showing” the numbers is a primary tenant in a branch of the design field called “data visualization.” Seeing numbers in a concrete way was probably the start of my interest in visual communication, which I would go on to study along with art as an undergraduate student.

Drawing is a tool of communication and often the first step to becoming a visual artist — at least it was for me. Drawing not only manifests representational imagery but explores expression through mark-making, color, and composition. Visual art can evoke emotions, communicate ideas, and elevate the human experience. Art brings what did not exist before into being. Art tells a story as well. Often this includes the artist’s own story and how they see the world. Art can activate all the senses and exists in many modalities. From literary texts to music and theatre, art can move people on both an intellectual and emotional level. It creates shifts in perception, attitudes, and thoughts by allowing us to make connections with people and things. These connections can be developed through the shared experience of a song, the kinship one develops with a character in a play or novel, or a familiar likeness one sees in a painting. And art has the power to do all of this while simultaneously surprising and entertaining an audience.

Design, which is grounded in visual communication, uses the tools of the artist to connect with an audience, often in service of a client’s needs. Design utilizes words and images to create meaning and deliver messages. The client and the designer become collaborators in creating a desired interaction with a particular audience. Interaction happens when someone views a poster, turns a page in a book, or downloads an app to their mobile device. Design not only cares about what these products look like, but also how they operate, communicate, educate, entertain, and entice. A designer asks themselves how what they will create will be used. Who will want to use it? And what will that experience be like?

As an artist and graphic designer, I enjoy the connections and collaborations both fields offer. As a designer, I enjoy helping people’s voices be heard. I work with authors to create book covers that get at the essence of their unique stories and organizations needing website and identity systems to better connect with their clients. In my art practice I create using all kinds of media such as charcoal, digital collage, and embroidery thread. The materials are used to communicate my own self-authored messages with an audience that responds to a shared human experience.

In my classes where I teach illustration and design, drawing plays a significant part in the process and development of visual ideas. From storyboarding and thumbnail sketches to final deliverables such as websites, murals, or posters, drawing is the main tool students use to communicate their concepts.

Watching Gene London draw pictures all those years ago helped me understand the power of pictures. Learning to draw provided me with the ability to communicate beyond the limits of words. Studying art and design helped me become a storyteller — one that is able to help clients visualize and communicate the messages they want to share. Gene’s stories and art gave me the tools and confidence needed to tell my own stories as an artist — stories that will hopefully inspire others to find their own unique visual voices.

About the author

name: Kelly Leslie

Kelly is an associate professor and chair of the Illustration and Design program in the School of Art. Kelly believes that art and design can impact communities by making ideas more accessible and comprehensible. She enjoys gardening and cooking — which she considers art forms in their own right — those that can delight and surprise, as well as nourish.