Wow... I've never heard  of that combination before🤯 

Design, to me, isn’t just about creating something visually appealing or making a beautiful drawing to boost your ego. While aesthetics matter, true design goes far beyond surface-level visuals. It’s about intention, purpose, and impact. My grandfather, for example, creates stunning paintings, art that inspires and evokes emotion. But even then, great design is not just about beauty; it's about how well something fits into its context, solves a problem, or serves a function. It must look like it belongs and that is exactly what this painting does, it settles seamlessly into its setting, acting as a window that opens onto another place and time. 

Design exists to solve problems, and that’s why it matters. Whether we’re creating a digital product, a physical object, or a service, design is an investment, it costs time, resources, and money. That’s why it’s important to approach it strategically. Sometimes that means conducting a SWOT analysis to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats before starting or making someone feel delighted about a unspoken need. Other times, it means choosing sustainable materials, designing for longevity, or considering the environmental and social impact of our choices.

In a world overwhelmed by waste and inefficiency, design can also be a force for responsibility. Sustainable design isn’t just a trend, it’s becoming a necessity. Creating products that last, designing for circular economies, or even eliminating the need for a product entirely through smarter systems thinking. These are the big challenges designers are facing now.

So for me, design is a mindset. It’s not decoration, it’s direction. It’s not only about how things look, but how they work, why they exist, and what they contribute. It's the bridge between ideas and impact.