Design 101: Don’t Decorate.

Get this out of your head: design is not about decoration. It is about art.

And if you think art is only about being pleasing to the eye, then please - for your own sake and all of ours - please stay out of the design business.

There. I said it. Call me a heretic if you want. Don’t read any further if it offends you. But, if you’re intrigued, follow the “Read more” link for the explanation.

So here’s the thesis: design and art are really about expression.

If it is expressing something, then it isn’t captivating.
If it isn’t actively exploring some idea, then it isn’t going anywhere worth following.
If it isn’t acknowledging some need, then it surely isn’t meeting any need.

If it isn’t somehow relevant to the viewer, then it isn’t good design.

This is a tough lesson. I learned it the hard way — fairly recently in my professional design career — after suffering through several design projects by just trying to make things “look cool”. I got lucky once in a while and made something that was eye-catching. But even then, it was only after hours of no inspiration, random trial and error, and being bored/frustrating with every minute of it.

Need inspiration? Have designer’s block? Coming up with dull, lifeless designs? The answer to all of these is pretty simple: just express something with your design. Anything.

Passion, anger, angst, utility, desire, joy, love, need, … anything.

Sometimes the viewer will do you a huge favor and have such an overactive soul that they are spoken to by a design that was never intended to speak. Awesome — you got lucky with that viewer. But the general rule is this: If you want your design to speak to the viewer, then you have to speak to and through your design.

So how do we “express” through design?

Remember my mantra: “everything is connected”. Memorize it. Good - you’re on your way. This mantra is hugely important in design. If you’re trying to express something, you have to communicate it. If you’re trying to communicate something, you have to appeal to a common context for understanding that idea.

Make sense?

If your intended audience has no idea what you’re talking about - no similar context or point of reference - then your expression is futile. Good design, though, bridges this gap. The “expression” isn’t just of the idea, it is also of the context.

In a phrase, and I’ll write more about this in another post, good design results in a synthesis: it finds connecting points between people, ideas, needs, and expressions, and shoves them all together.

A well-designed chair can’t just look good, it also has to be functional. And comfortable. And affordable. In a way, that chair is expressing all of those needs, and bring them together.

Likewise, a good website doesn’t just look pretty, it also has to be easy to navigate. And have good content. And be updated regularly. And be a connecting point for people and ideas. And… the list goes on. A well-designed website expresses those issues to visitors, and says “I know about your needs and desires in these areas, and I’m trying to meet them”.

We may all be different, but we’re all human. Start there. Make your design - your art - be the common point of reference that bridges those gaps, and expresses those ideas that everyone has thought, but just can’t quite put into words.

Stay indie —

-A

Tags: communicating, design, everything is connected, express, synthesis

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 10:33 pm and is filed under design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.