It's a question that comes up as early as your days in college, and it's a question that continues to come up throughout your career. Is design art?
No.
And by the end of this short post, I hope you'll agree with me.
Saying design isn't art doesn't mean it can't be beautiful. Or bring someone to tears. Or inspire millions of people to action. Design uses the same toolbox as art. The difference between design and art isn't how they are made. The difference comes before the first sketch even appears in the sketchbook.
Art is all about the voice of the artist. The intent is to communicate a personal idea of the artist's choosing.
Design is about the voice of the brand. The intent is to communicate an idea that solves a specific problem for a specific audience.
A designer's job is to use all of the tools of visual art—color, composition, type, imagery, illustration—to effectively communicate on behalf of a third-party to their audience. This is the client.
A designer has to be ready and able to adopt the appropriate style to most effectively communicate with their client's audience. Many young designers get this idea completely backward. They think that their clients should adapt their style as a designer. That's not design. That's art.
This question goes beyond academic philosophizing. It has real practical application. Adopting this point-of-view will empower a designer to produce better, more effective work. It will improve internal critiques and client presentations (the feedback is about the design, not you as an artist). And it will improve the range of styles that a designer has experience with.
It's also one of the many reasons that I don't participate in design awards competitions, or consider the number of awards won when judging résumés. To me, many are judged as art shows. Not design shows. The winners are often chosen by how close they come to mimicking the trendiest style of the moment. I wish more consideration was given to how effectively they met the objectives of the intended challenge. An indication that these shows are about style over substance is that many don't even ask about the objective when submitting work.
This doesn't mean that a designer can't be valued for their unique skills or point-of-view. On the contrary, it's this kind of experience that will allow the designer to truly empathize with their client's audience and produce the most effective—and often, the most beautiful—work.