May 13, 2006
How will we survive this current crisis?!
ome in the community (developers mostly, of course) maintain that there is some sort of design crisis at hand. Too many designers, they say, are rampaging through the internet engaging in promiscuous and unprotected activity. The results of which is a high birthrate of website designs that owe some measure of allegiance to current aesthetic trends involving gradients, round corners and drop shadows. Oh the horror! Oh, the humanity!
Oh, gimme a friggin’ break.
There is no design crisis and designers are in no rut. This (non) issue has and continues to be blown way out of proportion and taken far beyond the bounds of its relevant context. Surely there are some inappropriately equipped individuals cranking out poor designs in a commercial setting, but the problem here is not the aesthetic choices they’re making. The trend is not the issue; these individuals are the issue. Quality varies in any profession.
So why this ongoing backlash against these few arbitrarily chosen aesthetic elements? Why not choose the apple-green and black color combination to rail against? Why not direct this ire and vitriol at serifs or sidebars? The 2-column layout is FAR more ubiquitous and more utilized than gradients. Where’s the social outcry against it?
Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard or of thy websites.
It’s time for some misguided fundamentalists to stop displaying their ignorance and quietly go on to criticism of something else before they lose more credibility. Seriously, let’s let designers handle the design stuff. We're more than capable of policing our own community and profession, thank you.
What we design for ourselves is wholly irrelevant to professional design. It is client work that brings with it consequence and invokes the responsibilities inherent in design.
Designers understand that these much maligned graphic elements are fundamentally communicative iterations of line, form, color, texture, balance and emphasis. They actually mean something in the language of design and can be utilized to enhance the message and support design objectives.
True, these elements can be misapplied to awful effect and regrettable market result, but there’s nothing inherently bad about them. They’re no more insidious than the color red or a sharp cornered box. They’re tools in the designer’s toolbox to utilize as needed.
What’s more, these specific elements are socially relevant right now. Yes, I said it! There is such a thing as trends and trends are not something that can be arbitrarily ignored. Trends are good. Trends are healthy. Furthermore, trends are inevitable!
This is not to say that all new websites these days need to employ round corners or drop shadows in order to be relevant. But it does mean that the mere fact that a website utilizes these design elements doesn’t mean that it’s therefore some pathetic “me too” design. This is the mistake that too many are making. They can’t see the forest for the trees and are making poor evaluations of some website designs because of their regrettably misplaced prejudice. So sad.
Don’t misapply the context
One of the unfortunate things about this criticism is that many examples are being taken out of context. Much of this criticism is aimed at members of the design community for their work on their own sites. WTF!? Seriously folks, what an individual does with his weblog or portfolio has absolutely no bearing on the actual world of design. Unless you think a tempest in a teacup is consequential.
Despite what you’re mommy or your professor told you, there is only something positive about uniqueness if it represents quality and/or brings positive results.
What we design for ourselves is wholly irrelevant to professional design. It is client work that brings with it consequence and invokes the responsibilities inherent in design. Our own private work, even if we display it publicly, is just experimentation, play, practice. It’s lab work, friends. Such work necessitates no responsibility and has no bearing on our profession – where things do matter. Criticism of this sort of work is dangerously close to meaningless.
Certainly, evaluation of such personal work – evaluation of the design integrity, effect, overall success, etc… -- is worthwhile, important even. But this is not what we have in the great preponderance of this obtuse criticism of certain specific design elements. It’s time to relegate our efforts at evaluating the design, not arbitrarily chosen elements taken out of context.
If you ain’t a unique and special snowflake, you ain’t shit
Horse feathers. In the context of professional design, there is nothing inherently noble or positive about being unique. Despite what you’re mommy or your professor told you, there is only something positive about uniqueness if it represents quality and/or brings positive results. In our business it is the results that count.
So for all you haters out there, here’s something that’ll really blow your mind. If some unique and new design motif exemplifies quality and brings quality results, it will inevitably result in a new trend! You can bank on it. Then what will you do?
Don’t answer. I already know.
Back to Top
Back to Main Page
Previous Articles
- Sensitivity Training
- Objectivity Be Damned
- Seek Understanding, Not Answers
- Poynter's Complete Waste of Time
- Amazon.com Redux
- Civilization vs. Responsibility
- Logo Misapplication
- No Instruction Necessary - part 2
- Design View Redux
- No Instruction Necessary
- Fox News Redux
- Six Apart Hates Designers
- Redesign Competitions
- How will we survive the current crisis?!
- the Design Quiz
- Redux Anatomy
- White House.gov Redux
- Design Context: Contrast in Context
- Designing a Guided Tour
- The first rule of web design is you don't talk about web design
- Life Lessons
- Anticipation
- The Layers of Design: the style layer
- Andy Rutledge is a 16-Year Old Doofus
- Google Redux
- Hungry? Want another bullshit sandwich?
- Design Process vs. Result
- No Comments Here
