Stumbling across this blog gave me a much needed wake up call on how I was working the past months.
I’ve pretty much fallen into the rut of just making things look pretty. I’m not going through the entire design process simply because my job scope doesn’t require me to do so. So instead of like, the discovery > research > concept > execution, I just jump straight to execution, because the earlier steps have somewhat already been provided. So after 2 months it’s been more about finding the next cool effect to spice up the artworks. Rather than problem solving, which I think is what good design should be about.
Anyways, back to this blog, if you scroll down to his archive section, it’s a goldmine of thought and views on design, about creating effective non-trend following designs and interfaces based on business objectives. Looking at his bio, he has over 10 years in corporate business development, so he knows what businesses are looking for: effective designs that work. This was the angle we were going for while i was still in Style SG, but ahhhh well, that didn’t work out.
There are some posts where he goes on to say how some sites have brought the entire value of design down. Cornering new designers into trends and making them think that design is all about useless details like grunge looks, font effects, Photoshop techniques or a new javascript function. Then he goes on to talk about how retarded it is that programmers can write an article on how to design websites, when nothing in it is related in anyway to real design and solving the client’s problem. There are also posts where he goes on the say how many hack agencies there are in the world, and how it’s ruining the entire industry.
After reading his articles, I’m quite wary of visiting ‘design’ portals like these, as well as ‘How-to’ or ‘Top 10 tips’ kind of sites you find all over the place. Need to go back to real design articles. But those are very rare. Have you come across a credible site that teaches core design principles and the design process?
