DIY Death to High Design?

I frequent design blogs and many of them have sections on DIY: Do it yourself. I have also fingered through a copy of a book by the same title published by Maryland Institute of Art. In these sections the purpose various projects in which the participant can create cool stuff from books to t-shirt even wall applications. This begs the question where does that put trained designers? Is it a threat or just diversifying the market? Does more competition make you better?

These are all questions I ask myself I think about an issue of Ready Made magazine or teenagers spending hours tweaking their myspace pages. With more and more visual stimuli out their how do I compete? Do I pander to the masses? Who doesn’t love a cute but weird animal or a skull and cross bone kitty? Do I attempt to freak the masses out and make them totally uncomfortable? Do you really catch more flies with honey?

It is also weird to me that I am totally intimidated by DIY but I am more than willing to except companies like Pocketo or Beautiful Decay with open arms.

http://www.designspongeonline.com/category/diy