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by Brian Lehmer

I am Christian and I earn a living in the business in and around aesthetic design. I know an older brother in the Lord who runs a business. He helped to instill in me the value of honesty towards all. Romans 12:17 commends me in part to "Provide things honest in the sight of all men." Honesty isn't just telling the truth, it is also in how you portray yourself, and is demonstrable in what you provide. That is doing the truth.

Being in business gives me a particular kind of opportunity to do just that. Design is very much "in the sight of all men". For this reason I am all the more compelled to believe that honesty and transparency are the key characteristics to the services I provide.

I didn't write this up to sell my business or my way of doing business. Actually I saw it as an opportunity to be publicly associated with the Lord Jesus Christ. Also as others in the industry have frequently had something to say about design, I find this to be an opportunity for me to say what I think about the matter to my peers in the field.

I believe the Bible is the truth and inerrant. The principles on which I base my work are contained in the Word of God. I believe that I can be better at what I do because I believe the truth and apply it to my work. More importantly I hope in so doing to be a workman not ashamed - I seek to be approved in the work that God has prepared for me to do.

We read in part in Ecclesiastes 1:8 that "the eye is not satisfied with seeing". Again in the next couple verses we read that "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there any thing whereof it may be said, 'See, this is new?', it hath already been of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after."

This teaches us a few certain things that we may apply in the business of design that as we observe them instruct us not to be preoccupied with the many vain pursuits that are associated with this industry.

The experience of seeing is superficial. That is, it is composed of detecting what is on the surface. We enjoy, appreciate, and occasionally put it to good use nonetheless.

Aesthetic design is, therefore, in and of itself superficial. That is something that perhaps few in this field would admit. It is an admission that must be made though if we are to go about doing the work of an aesthetic designer the right way.

'Why bother with the superficial?', some may ask. Everybody knows that we mustn't judge a book by its cover, but the thing is that we do judge books by their covers - thus the occasion for the popular proverb.

I have read somewhere, the opinion of a design expert, that the convention of form follows function is rapidly being undermined as we move from the information age into the visual age - as evidenced by the fact that engineers are now being forced to seek ways to accommodate conceptual design instead of the other way around.

That we are becoming more dependent upon sight is an interesting and disturbing change. Still this does not change the fact that form follows function. Engineering is a part of the design phase in product development too. Whether the aesthetic or interpretive designer gets to have a say before the engineer does is irrelevant. The product request is up the chain from either one and therefore product function is dictated upstream from both.

Taking the book cover example further we identify that the cover appears to be more glorious outwardly than the pages it contains. But the occasion for the cover is 'the content stupid' - literally - 'about the content without speaking'..

So people who rely wholly on book covers, what they see, and aesthetic design for knowledge can probably say accurately of themselves:

"I might be stupid but I'm not blind."

The fact that the saying about book covers rings so true as to be applied to almost anything is a testimony to the existence of a load of generally poor design. It would follow that in a world of otherwise talented designers, poor design must be attributed to the acceptance of inaccurate industry postulate. Sure, not all design fits this mold, but after all, you still can't judge a book by its cover.

Good design should convey, using superficial means, something about what lies beneath the surface. It should be both honest and transparent. As such, design is to be the servant of function. After all, who would ever say (most natural scientists excepted) that purpose is superceded by the superficial?

Design should tell the truth.

So is this the significance we find in our work - to tell a story true to the intention of a final product? It might be the logic we use to do what we do, but still isn't ultimately significant for any of these reasons. Why? Can the superficial ever truly be significant of its own merit? Common sense says no, importance is more than skin deep. If we strip away everything that can be removed and leave only the unchangeable and eternal we will only then discover what is not superficial.

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

We know from the Scriptures that all the things of this world are essentially superficial.

In 2 Peter 3:7 we read, "But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."

In Hebrews 12:25-29 we read "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire."

Even if we could twist the purpose of aesthetic design into some greater thing we arrive at the same conclusion.

What you see is not what you get.

We bother with the superficial everyday, for the Christian as a test of faithfulness, for the rest in an endeavor to satisfy the insatiable.

Earlier in Ecclesiastes we read, "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?" The rhetorical response to this question is "None whatsoever". This poses a dismal problem to those preoccupied with all things under the sun.

There is a way that we may be occupied in profitable labor - which is not work that you take to yourself from under the sun. However, to begin to do so requires that you be born again. That is to say, created new in Christ. The significance to my work is in the fact that "...we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them." - Ephesians 2:10

John 3:12-21 Says, "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you [of] heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, [even] the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God."

To learn more about how you may become profitable in Christ just read your Bible.

Visit www.biblestudy.net for some helpful insight.

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