Brett wrote:
>Sorry, didn't intend to imply that the site was supposed to *be* bauhaus
>(a style I have little interest in and don't really like myself), but
>that the people overseeing the graphic design leaned that way and tried
>to exert influence. The initial drafts that came from them had
>*nothing* but white space and text links. <snip>The guys doing the design
and I had
>a drawn out process of finding middle ground with them.
>My preference would have been more engaging and integrated navigation, a
>richer picture-based story telling aspect, and a hell of a lot less text
>and whitespace -- or, heaven forbid, a background other than FFFFFF.
>
>The reference was simply to explain why the design leans toward
>starkness, especially internally.
Next time around, you might find the process a lot less painful if you start
out by hiring designers whose portfolio already demonstrates the kind of
graphically rich design you're looking for. You need to make sure the
designers are capable of doing the kind of work you want. And if you're
hiring a large firm with several designers or a number of freelancers, make
sure they've assigned your project the designer whose work in their
portfolio you liked.
A heavy preference for Bauhaus might also be basically b.s. for covering up
the designers' inabilty to do something graphically rich. (There was a lot
more going on during the Bauhaus era than just white space.) They may not
know how to do the Photoshop work, or they may not know how to design rich,
ornate graphics that can later be broken up into functional Web page
elements and put back together with complex tables (that include ALT tags!).
Heavy reliance on image maps is a hint to me that they may lack this
particular skill. (In five years of Web design I have only used an image map
ONCE -- and that was when I needed to hyperlink three sections of a gif
animation together and couldn't figure out how to get the frames to play in
correct sequence and timing without making it all one graphic.)
Once you've found a designer whose portfolio evidences styles that you like,
you can also help them by providing clippings of print material or URLs to
demonstrate styles that you like. Even when a designer has the skills and
stylistic inclination to do the kind of design you're interested in, it can
still be very hard for a designer to "get inside your head" and figure out
exactly what you're talking about. So, it can be helpful to provide examples
such as, "I don't mean for you to copy www.XXXX.com, but I wanted you to
know that I like the way they've used a different photographic collage and a
different color background for each page."
Also, keep in mind that if you have an agency whose marketing skills or
areas of expertise you need (such as fundraising for non-profits), but you
don't feel comfortable with their design, you can always specify before
hiring them that you want them to work with the designer of your choice.
Suz
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