Warren,
This is a pretty large topic, and I feel like you're looking for that
"silver bullet." Coming from a design background, I have a few
initial comments... F
First of all understand that programming and design are two
_completely_ different ways of thinking. You're engaging opposite
sides of your brain. This is why few people are able to do both
really well. Also understand that there are some significant
differences between different types of design: graphic, usability,
interaction, information architecture, etc. If I were to draw a scale
of right-brained design activities, graphic design would be on the
far right, while usability design would be more towards the left.
From my perspective, some of your examples seem a little off. For
example 37Signals... great usability designers, however absolutely
_horrible_ graphic designers (it is absolutely possible to have
both). Joyent on the other hand, has hired some excellent freelance
designers and illustrators to do their graphic work. Their usability
may not be as refined as the stuff from 37Signals, but their stuff is
much prettier to look at. MySpace, I barely want to justify w/ a
comment. It looks like someone threw up on my screen. And the user
customizations aren't all to blame. Even their stock pages and their
home page are horrendous. Amazon.com may not be pretty, but they have
_great_ usability design. Thousands of dollars and hours of top-notch-
expert work have gone into that site to squeeze every last penny of
revenue out of it. I'm sure they've got their design down to a
science, where they could tell you moving a single element 6 inches
to the left will result in an X thousands of dollars change in revenue.
Also, in the broad scheme of things, I would not categorize Nike's
site as overly elaborate and decorative. That site definitely has a
more "clean, modern, Web2.0" aesthetic to it compared to some of the
other trends that have come and gone in the history of web design.
That brings up another point... mediums like print and fashion design
may have a longer history than web design, but the trend in web
design has not always been simple and minimalist. That trend is
fairly recent... maybe within the last 3-5 years if that.
If you're looking to dig into design, there are a ton of quality
resources out there. I've referenced past design aesthetics a few
times here... so here's a site to get you started w/ some background
info:
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm
They do a great analysis of current web design trends, w/o all the
jokes you usually find w/ "Web 2.0 design" articles
Here's another serious take on modern web design from the same site:
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/web-2.0-design-style-guide.cfm
And here's a list of some of the older web design trends that have
existed:
http://www.lab404.com/dan/
Hopefully the above give you a good starting point. Sorry for the
long-winded email.
On Mar 14, 2007, at 7:55 PM, Warren Henning wrote:
I'm designing my own blog template in Mephisto, the Rails blogging
package. I tried to do a photographic, dark-colored one and I was
unhappy with the results. I actually spent uh, like, 12 hours messing
around looking for stock photos on the Internet, messing with
Photoshop and CSS, and I'm not happy with the results.
Now, part of this is the fact that I'm really not much of a designer.
I don't think the stuff I create is ugly, it's just not as good as
what people like 37 Signals and Joyent can do.
But I think another part of it is that minimalist layouts with very
little fancy design stuff to them are somehow more trustworthy. I
don't know if trying to be flashy is even worth it. Fancy designer
products with cool graphics like the ones that Yayhooray.com members
create all the time are normally viewed in contexts where there's an a
priori expectation of elaborate commercial art: t-shirts, television
commercials, CD covers, and other areas where there's a longstanding
tradition of going all out.
I'm not sure exactly what I'm trying to say here. I just think that
fancy photoshoppy layouts somehow don't feel right. For example,
www.nikeplus.com - the site has such intense colors and it really
bothers me. I don't like how everything is curved, round, and
gradient-y, and red like a muhfugg. I also think Amazon and MySpace
are horribly designed. I wish sites like that would just focus on the
basics.
What's everyone's approach towards design? For now, I'm going to be
sticking to my old minimalist style I developed years ago because it's
all I know.
Warren
P.S. Have you noticed how big-name people like Zeldman don't talk much
about hands-on techniques for web design anymore? Instead they talk
about how to apply that to creating businesses and products.
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