quote:
jstuartj said:
Perhaps you need to simply spend more time, identifing the
purpose and audience. It may simply be the reason all your work feel
the same, is you are simply building them to please yourself and not
realy considering your audience.
He (please correct me if you're not a he) hit the nail square on the head.
If all I did was design projects for me, I'd simply wire myself to the fridge and never leave the house again. As tempting as that sounds, it'd quickly grow bored of it and before you know it, I'd have run out of wacky appliances and I'd be trying to figure how I could program my shag pile carpet.
So very not cool...
'Content', when it comes to design is but a small fish in a huge sea of monsters you should be wrestling with when it comes to design. Having said that, Having "something" to design for is imperative to the very nature of design in all of its forms, but it goes way beyond that. "Content" is meat, design isn't meat, it's the stir-fry sauce! Design puts the 'content' into context on so many levels you have to analyse it until your eyes bleed.
People who design chairs by studying other chairs are shitty chair designers. If you were a good chair designer, you might consider the following:
> who's most likely to sit in this chair?
> the way people sit, the way these people sit, the way these people should sit, do I cater to them or for them? ? there?s a difference.
> their posture...
> their weight...
> age, sex, shoe size, sexual preference, mean hair colour (<- if you ever get given that last stat form a marketing survey, be scared)
> what matters, what doesn't or perhaps the most interesting, what you make matter? (that can't be a valid use of English)
> how much is my client paying me for this?
> the materials available to you...
> analyse how many legs a chair needs, does it need legs? wheels? does/should it rotate? raise/lower? tilt? 6 degrees of freedom?
> ask yourself if this chair needs a back at all, maybe it needs more than one back?
> my client really ought to be paying me more for this shit...
> consider the space the chair is being used in, inside, outside, light, dark, noisy, smoky -- they all matter if you can scope the design to them.
> does it have a level floor?
> how much is my client paying me for this again?
> is the floor slippery?
> is the floor reflective, if so, do you consider the design of the underside of the chair as well?
> I still don't think my clients pay`n me enough for this...
> what kind of fashion trends to these kind of people and or places have in common?
> how might these relate to the aesthetics applied to the design of the chair?
> when I finish this list I'm calling my client and demanding for more pay!
> ...
I could go on for hours, but you get the idea. Design without context simply isn't design, its mere scribble (in a literal sense, not an aesthetic one).
So, be a good chair designer, think it through, write it down, re think it, mix it up and if you?re still not happy, repeat.
Although, I should point out that even if you've been using the web or designing for the web for a long time, never skip the basics. I still have problems with this as I often jump in half way through and later realised I assumed I was accounting for a lot of things because I was "experienced" when I was really just assuming and more often than not I've overlooked something rather simple yet fundamental. No amount of experience lets you skip the basics, I've learnt this the hard way many times over.
Question the very nature of web, the medium, the technology -- question every last button, font style and colour until you have a solid answer for them *before* you put them into practice. If you can't find an answer, search for it, chances are someone else was thinking the same thing and had a stab at answering it anyways. I know this seems restrictive, and it actually is at first but it really helps you to understand how it all fits together. This leads to finding better ways of doing things that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.
quote:
Relain said:
To some extent surely you need to just get your own eye in like with art etc its not much that can be taught you just have to sort of see it.
I disagree completly.
If you see something by another designer you like, stop and break it down. Tear into it until you can accurately identify what about it you actually like and why you like it. Why is works, not because it looks nice, that's never going to get you anywhere. Poke it, prod it, turn it upside down. It might take a while, but eventually you'll start to understand the choices that designer made when making that particular work, and from that you'll understand why it works, why it looks nice. Simply remembering what looks nice/good/cool/funky/hip/whatever will do you no favours. Anyone with eyes can do that! You need to understand it on a finer level. And this is something that can be taught. Being well versed in design principals of all kinds is the key here.
I'm also going to argue against "brainstorming". It's never worked for me. Not once have I been in a brain storming session that's produce an intelligent and usable idea. Creativity, in my experience, doesn't come from some mystical place, it doesn't just *pop* out without call, there's always a chain of cognition, a trigger if you will, behind it. For me, it comes from having a good understanding of what you?re working with and devoting some quality headspace to thinking about and analysing design in that regard. Einstein didn't brainstorm, he simply never stoped turning things over upstairs to the point where he would put on the same clothes every day as thinking about "fashion" was a complete waste of time for him. Things were constantly clicking into place for him because he had the capacity and the "flow" to keep things moving. I guess this is related to brainstorming in a sense, but I think the word "flow" better describes the process of producing creative outcomes.
A good grounding in general design principals will go a long way: line, form, colour, shape, point, space (and I'm forgetting one, shame on me)... ? and a firm understanding of metaphor, the principals of communications, and semiotics (especially the latter two) will help a lot as well.
(Edited by Cameron on 04-15-2004 23:40)
posted 04-15-2004 07:15
