Everyone’s chimed in by now on the life and death of Amy Winehouse. But, really, what could be said that truly encapsulates Winehouse that could not be explained by listening to her voice? Regardless of her unfortunate personal problems and battle with addiction, this voice is not easily found. She had probably introduced countless young people to jazz and blues (myself included), and for that alone, her legacy in music should be and needs to be remembered.

It’s a shame that the design profession is so grossly misunderstood by the majority of people. Somehow, somewhere along the lines, the design profession has been transformed to mean little more than pixel-pushing, Photoshop air-brushing, mindless drones of their “Make My Logo Bigger“-demanding clients. This, of course, is a huge misconception, because the tools used in design (eg., Photoshop, InDesign, etc.) and the methods (HTML, CSS, etc.) are very much secondary to the problem-solving that a designer is tasked to do. And, yes, in a broader scope, problem-solving is exactly what a designer has to do to create something that is effective. These days, the problems at hand usually relate to communications (ie., marketing and advertising), though there are other forms of designs that are equally as high-profile: architecture, fashion design, web design, and – more recently – interaction design, among many other forms. Take a step back, and all involve research, planning, conceptualizing, testing — all before they start to branch off into their own respective sub-categories of design. This is called design thinking, and that is the topic – and name – of a documentary currently in production.

Put together by four designers from Taipei Design Center U.S. and media studio Muris Media, Design Thinking‘s goal through the documentary is to give a voice to creative thinkers and shed light to both the term and the methodology. Though it’s become one of today’s buzzwords in corporate boardrooms – along with Web 2.0 and social media – the concept of design thinking is not in fact a new one, and though the term may change as time goes on, the methodology will always stay the same.

The creators of the documentary have a page up on Kickstarter to donate money to their project. The higher you donate, the more incentives you receive if they reach their goal, of course. Check out the trailer above, because if the quality of the trailer is any indication, this will be a documentary that needs to be seen and will spark some discussions that will hopefully push the design field forward.