Design constraints
Constraint leads to bad design, and good design
Books can teach you how to write HTML, online tutorials can help you craft your Photoshop and Fireworks skills, thousands of hours of hard work and engagement will provide you with a better understanding of the ins and outs of the Internet and the ways in which people interact with it.
Your job title is meaningless.
I am a designer. I work mainly on the web. I use Photoshop and Textmate daily. I build websites.
Does that stop me picking up a paint brush, spray can or scissors, or camera and camcorder and going out onto the street to obtain different forms of media that I feel may be useful in moulding my final output, the end creation?
No?
If it serves as a valuable asset in creating the final experience, there is no need to be restricted by my job title or the equipment on my desk alone. But constraints also allow us to expand creatively. By creating barriers, we know how far we can go – the lengths to which we can stretch and bend the rules to create something new, something that works within it’s medium whilst evolving beyond the competition, beyond the confines of the original brief or spec.
Make clients happy, make users happy. Everyone’s happy, everyone wins!
If there are no rules in the first place, how can we break them?
However, never forget the difference between art and advertising. Art is personal expression. Advertising serves the needs and purposes of the client. It is to promote a brand, a product, a service or opinions. Advertising makes money. Web design is a form of advertising, an increasingly essential and multifunctional branch of advertising and branding that absolutely cannot be overlooked or underestimated.
But advertising is dead, isn’t it?
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Gareth Trufitt said:
With the job title of designer I agree that there is no reason to be restricted to the confines of photoshop and illustrator, we are constantly using textures, brushes, scans etc to enhance and bring that creative visual flare to our designs and whether that be from stock art or from our own personal creative art or photography there is no limits on how far we can push our own creative boundaries other than our own imagination.
There are always rules in web design, that’s the beauty of being able to break them, there are constraints to break through and limits to be pushed.
There is no reason why advertising and, as an extension, web design, cannot be art, personal expression can always show through, no matter what constraints or rules are applied, I believe that constraints, guidance and restrictions can help us sometimes be better designers, give us a focus and enable us to pinpoint a winning design because the best designers are able to output fantastically beautiful designs with the most restrictive of briefs.
Great post, cheers!
Gareth
lindsay said:
I have to totally agree with you. I started out as an “artist” who basically draws. I knew nothing about computer programs until I met my husband who was a graphic design major at UofH. He taught me to turn my artist skills into digital works of art.. But then i didnt know what to do with them.. so i turned to learning to build websites. I am 100% self taught in that aspect, and books are a GREAT tool as are online tutorials But being from the background I am from, and having a husband who is a professional photographer really helps to push me out of the box from iStockPhoto and other basic forms of media.
pixeldope said:
photoshop is a great tool and those who know how to use it, can design and do anthing their creativity can take to…love you…thanks for sharing
Nicolewelsh said:
Your take on the role constraint plays is philosophical
After all this is what we observe in life as well.. we need to define rules to stick to them.. absolute freedom leads to angst..
Same with web designing.. could not agree more..