Left Lane

When the “bad design is good” argument circled the web design community (again) a few weeks ago a lot of people were concerned. I was too fired up to stay quiet.

I made a comment on this article because I needed to let off steam. This is put here mostly for posterity; I don’t want to lose it in case it gets deleted.

From May 1, 2006, edited for format.

This is wrong on so many levels.

1. When the world first had a written history after centuries of a purely oral tradition, it was elitest. I’ll admit that. When the printing press was invented, words and ideas were able to be printed and distributed on a large scale with less effort. More people learned to read and write. People became empowered. Design saved these people from this mass influx of information. Design, at its purest and most functional, took from nature familiar forms and groupings in order to group like pieces of information together to make them easier to follow and understand. Imagine a newspaper without any perceptible headlines; with all the type the same face, size, and weight, let’s say with no punctuation at all. It would not be an effective communication tool. Imagine all your precious stock quotes on a web page in 8 point Courier New with no groupings of like information and in ALL UPPER CASE. It would certainly be a challenge to find what you are looking for. The earliest designers (ancient scribes to early book and newspaper designers) solved these very problems out of necessity for the COMMON GOOD, so that the masses may stay informed effectively. (Does this sound like ominous authority to you?) Today’s designers are learning these age-old techniques and following in the footsteps of literally thousands of years of tradition. So you see, design is about making information legible, meaningful, and most of all accessible. Vanity has nothing to do with it. If these people you mention, who “do not want to have any authority in the web,� cannot accept the fact that design is working for them and not against them, I feel sorry for them. They’re missing the point. You’re missing the point.

2. The power shift you’re talking about? It’s an illusion. Corporations are allowing us to check our account balances, pay our bills, price bargains, or do any number of the things you mentioned, so don’t get too excited. They could take it away in an instant if they wanted to. Sorry.

3. Moreover, thousands upon thousands of designers have spent countless years designing brilliant type faces such as Verdana, Bembo, Georgia, Times, Bodoni, Trajan, etc. Are the works of these type designers now worthless because, as you say, designers need to rethink their tools? Would you rather we not have appropriate fonts for appropriate settings? Like it or not, designers’ tools are your tools too. Why don’t you delete all the fonts off your computer and design your own from scratch? Don’t take so many things you use every day for granted.

Any designer, even if having other - let’s say humanistic - intentions, must be reminded that the toolset we are using has its origin in expressing power within a society.

Are you suggesting that my installation of Photoshop has Neo-Nazi tendencies? If I use the same type faces as on old Chinese or Russian propaganda posters, does that make me a communist? Don’t be an asshat.

All in all, design does not make communication better. Design is communication. Period.

Posted in Design, Rant, StickyNotes.