Art:
Art hides. Art has a meaning, and it hides it, on purpose. Art delivers a message, and it’s hidden, on purpose. It is an art to create art. Art is unusable, by definition.
Design:
Design reveals. Design reveals meaning, design reveals a message, design reveals function. Bad design does the opposite: It obscures, it hides. The reason why that almost never makes bad design art is that the subject is supposed to be revealed.
Decoration:
Anything else that doesn’t have meaning is just decoration, at most. Ask an artist what he wants to achieve with his art piece – if he can’t (not necessarily: won’t) tell, he’s a decorator, not an artist. Ask a designer why her design works – if she can’t tell, she’s probably a (lucky) decorator, not a designer. Decoration’s sometimes appealing, but it often transports nothing.
These definitions are simplified, sure, so they’re rather principles or attributes of art, design, and decoration. They rely on other definitions, for example “meaning”. They also ignore certain factors like audience, context, and emotion. However, they seem to hold true often enough to be considered principles. I smell some confirmation bias, but that’s my observation.
thanks
Amit Gurung
Designer
Kathmandu, Nepal