Design should be judged by how well it communicates, not by artistic mystique

Munari rejects the romantic idea that a designer's value lies in expressing a unique inner vision the way a painter might. Instead, he treats design as fundamentally a communication problem: does this object, symbol, or interface convey what it needs to convey, clearly and efficiently, to the people who will actually use it.

This reframing shifts the standard of success away from originality or personal expression and toward legibility and usefulness. A beautifully expressive chair that's uncomfortable to sit in, or a striking logo nobody can read at a glance, fails by Munari's standard regardless of its aesthetic ambition.

He's careful not to dismiss beauty — he simply insists beauty in design should emerge from solving the communication problem elegantly, not from decoration layered on top of a solution. A well-designed object often looks good precisely because every part of it is doing real work. Takeaway: judge a design first by whether it works for its audience, and let beauty follow from that.