What is good design? Why is it important?

What is good design, why is it important? How do you pull together design and democracy?

If you weren’t lucky enough to attend the Melbourne Writers Festival this year, one of the highlights for us was a talk called ‘Design Matters’ hosted by Esther Anatolitis – the subject of the discussion was about advocacy in design and architecture. The two expert panelists were Debbie Millman and Stuart Harrison.

Debbie Millman is a ‘brand’ specialist and a prolific podcaster on all things to do with design. Her podcast is called Design Matters and based on the number of downloads there’s a big market out there.

She is joined by Melbourne architect Stuart Harrison, who broadcasts on 3RRR Melbourne with a show called The Architects. It is easy to stray into pretentious territory when you’re talking design and architecture, but they’re also talking big picture city design. These are our urban landscapes and most of us have strong opinions about what assaults or pleases the eye.

This discussion was filmed at the Melbourne Writers Festival thanks to our wonderful ABC.

Click here to view the talk which is hosted on the ABC Big Ideas website.

Really inspiring graphic design created for the Melbourne Writers Festival, great illustration.