Design is not EITHER art OR function – it is the whole that creates value.
Being a designer is often about finding a purity, a truth.
It sounds simple, but is anything but.
For how does one make concrete something as intangible as a genuine expression?
When we talk about design, we often distinguish between two main directions:
Industrial design – mass production, where the focus is on functionality, usability, aesthetics, choice of materials, and suitability for production.
All with the goal that a product is easy to produce and can be manufactured uniformly on a large scale.
Unique design – craftsmanship and one-of-a-kind works, where the special character of the material and the poetry of the craft are allowed to take center stage.
Here, each work is unique and not necessarily possible to recreate.
But reality is rarely black and white.
In the intersection between the two, something special emerges:
- Small series or limited editions, where industry meets the exclusive.
- Experimental prototypes, where craftsmanship can pave the way for industrial production.
- Mass production with an artistic touch, giving the objects qualities resembling the unique.
- Collaborations, where the designer moves between roles and processes.
The intersection is where functionality and market meet artistic expression and the soul of craftsmanship. And perhaps it is precisely here that we find the seed of the iconic.
What is an icon?
In my work as a designer, evaluator, and specialist judge, I often encounter the word “icon.”
Some wish to create an icon. Others describe a work as iconic. And regularly, objects are judged to be iconic.
But what does it actually mean?
Take a Van Gogh painting. Even someone who knows little of his story can quickly recognize his expression.
It doesn’t take many images before one can say: That’s him. Van Gogh steps forward in his painting – like an unavoidable signature.
The same happens in music. A few bars can reveal Mozart, Vivaldi, or Debussy. Across times and art forms, we can point to Michelangelo, Ansel Adams, Chanel, Kaare Klint, or Poul Henningsen – creators whose distinctive expression stands out clearly and indisputably.
Icons without the artist
But let us start literally: with the religious icons. The gold-framed depictions of saints from the Orthodox tradition.
Personally, I have never thought of them as “great art.” Perhaps because I – like many others – was raised with the idea that art should tell us something about the artist.
That the work is a window into the creator’s inner world.
Icons are exactly the opposite. The tradition goes back over a thousand years, back to when the Western and Eastern churches split in 1054.
If you paint an icon today, you must do so in a way that no one can tell it is yours.
You step into a tradition where your own expression is erased.
The artist is irrelevant. The “I” is irrelevant. Everything is about the tradition – and the sacred that the icon points toward. Icons are not decoration. They are portals. They carry a religious value elevated above any individual signature.
The paradox
And here lies the paradox of icons: precisely by removing the personal, the artistic ego, interpretations still arise, variations, traces of the human hand. In the attempt to submit to a system, new paths open up.
When we today call something iconic, we think of the opposite: the personal distinctiveness that stands out clearly. But in both cases, it is about the same thing – an expression that steps out of anonymity and takes on a special weight.
New icons in a diverse world
We live in a time with an abundance of objects – both useful, decorative, and everything in between. Precisely for this reason, it is more important than ever to find one’s own expression – as a designer, as a company, as a creator.
We recognize and value distinctiveness. When we say “it looks like …” or “it sounds like …” it is precisely because we instinctively search for the connection to a known expression. But here the question also arises: Can one create an icon? Or is it time, history, and people’s use that make something iconic?
Do not seek the generic
I would argue: Do not seek anonymous, generic icons.
Seek instead the innovative, the creative, the personal.
For an icon does not come into being by itself. It comes into being when someone dares to stand behind every thought, every line, every decision. When designer and company do not hide behind trends or clichés, but stand by what they create.
Design is not just decoration. Design has value when it makes sense – practically, spiritually, and commercially.
© Svend Onø