On Wednesdays, we look at artist statements or design philosophy statements and discuss the best vocabulary to describe an artwork or design. Today’s designs are by Vijay Chakravarthy, an industrial designer, and we’ll check out his About page.
Here is the text from his About page, in italics.
Vijay is a polymath whose capabilities include business strategy & product design. His expertise is in developing holistic human experiences that include the design of services, environments, artifacts & digital products. With 13 years of global experience managing projects with premier brands, corporations and design consultancies, he delivers meaningful solutions that facilitate better business while being human centered.
With a strong track record of delivering successful solutions to markets including Americas, Europe and Asia, his work spans a wide range of industries – from transportation and robotics to healthcare – and a broad range of clients – from Fortune 500 brands to tech start-up’s. Having been part of multiple cross functional teams he is adept at being a networker and a facilitator of collaboration.
As the elected chair of the NYC chapter of one of the largest and oldest professional design organizations, the Industrial Designers Society of America, he serves members, businesses and institutions in New York City area. His passion for thought leadership drives him to keep abreast of evolving design and management trends. With award winning design work and strong managerial record, Vijay brings to the table a blend of results oriented approach and creativity.
Now my comments:
When writing an artist or design statement, it’s important to choose the best vocabulary to describe your work. Of course, it’s good to be able to describe your work professionally, but you also want people to understand what you’re talking about. Some artists and designers use too many buzzwords to describe their work. This means they use overly-complex sentences with a lot of words that might be trendy and sound important but are actually difficult to understand when you use too many of them. If the average person can’t easily understand your writing, that’s a problem. I think this is what’s happening with today’s example.
In the first paragraph, we learn about this designer’s abilities, expertise, and experience. He tells us that he’s a polymath, which means he knows a lot about many different things. Next, he talks about developing holistic human experiences. Holistic means being concerned with the whole of something, instead of the individual parts. He goes into more detail to describe what goes into these holistic human experiences, such as services, environments, artifacts & digital products. In this context, an artifact means a tool of some kind. Near the end, he talks about his experience and says that he delivers meaningful solutions that facilitate better business while being human centered. This means he finds solutions that are important or valuable to the user and help users to increase their business. Human-centered design means that the product makes life easier for the humans using it.
In the second paragraph, he talks about all the different kinds of experience he has. First, he mentions having a strong track record of delivering successful solutions, which means that he has a history of providing successful solutions. He next says his work spans a wide range of industries – from transportation and robotics to healthcare. This means he’s worked on projects from many different industries, and he gives examples to show how different they are. He does the same thing in the rest of the sentence when he talks about his broad range of clients and gives examples of those. In the last sentence, he says he has been part of multiple cross functional teams, which means many (multiple) teams with people from different areas of an organization (cross functional) who work together. He finishes by saying he is good at networking and helping people collaborate.
In the third paragraph, he describes his role as an elected chair in a professional design organization, the Industrial Designers Society of America. This means the members of this group chose him to be a leader. He leads the NYC chapter, which means the region around New York City. He describes what he does as the leader, and then talks about his passion for thought leadership. This means a person is recognized as an authority in a specialized field and that many people want his expertise. He says it is this passion that causes him to notice the newest trends in design and management. In his final sentence, he tells us that his designs have won awards and again says that he has a strong managerial record, meaning he has a history of being a good manager. Because of these things, he says he brings to the table a blend of results oriented approach and creativity. Bringing something to the table means you can add your skills to the group. In this situation, his skills are getting results (results oriented approach) and creativity.
As I said at the beginning of this post, I’m sure this designer has many skills and some great experience to offer, but I think the way he describes his work is a little too elaborate. As a native speaker, if I have to take apart and analyze his sentences to understand the meaning, it makes me want to stop reading. I would encourage all artists and designers to choose words that make it easier for others to understand their work instead of more difficult. It’s ok to use a few buzzwords, but don’t go crazy with them.
At Artglish, we help artists and designers to write a statement or About page that best describes their work. We focus on choosing the best vocabulary and language to help your work shine. If you’d like to learn more about what we offer, click here to get exclusive content, or check out our Courses page.
I’ve chosen 5 words or phrases for you to focus on today. They are in bold. If you don’t know them, look up the meaning, synonyms, antonyms, and other forms of these words. You can find links to Merriam-Webster dictionary sites at the bottom of this page.
To see Vijay Chakravarthy’s About page, click the link below:
http://www.vijayc.com/innovation/