Welcome back everyone. This week I was tasked with answering what seemed to be an easy question. What is my design philosophy? Simple enough, yet I had a lot of issues deciding on what the answer was. I started thinking about what I liked to see when I look at websites, posters or even magazines. Yes, I said magazines, they do still exist in the world of the web. My answer came down to one common item in all three. Large, bold images leading the way. So how would I answer?
Design Philosophy
I consider myself more of a designer than an artist. You may wonder what I consider the difference to be, and no, I’m not talking about Webster Dictionary’s difference between them. When it comes to design, I feel an artist creates a moment in time. That moment might be an emotion, an image or even a physical sensation. There are no limits to what that moment can be. A designer, in my view, creates a journey to an end. You create, so someone can find their finish point. If your creation simply takes your user on a tour that never reaches that final destination, then your design fails its reason for being created.
My work focuses on visual imagery to direct the viewers along this journey. I fully believe in the statement “A picture is worth a thousand words.” When I visit a website, I don’t want to read 3 paragraphs of text to figure out I need to click on the button in the bottom right to visit the drink menu. I prefer to use an image of a drink to direct the visitor to the correct page. Text has its place for labeling objects, but images are more effective to draw attention. The image below for instance, what grabs your attention first. Is it the imagery or the words?
I remember when I was younger and my family would go to the movie theatre. Outside hanging on the walls, much like today’s theatres, were large posters for all the movies that were showing. My brother and I would look at them and try to decide which one we wanted to see based solely on the image with no idea what the actual movie was about. Amazingly enough, I don’t remember ever being disappointed with our choice. I believe this has a lot to do with my fascination with the effects imagery can have on influencing the user’s experience with a website.
To demonstrate the effectiveness imagery can have on a website experience, let’s take a look at the negative side of this as well. The Yale School of Art has a collaborative site that multiple users can add content to. Looking through the navigation created, there is no discernable destination or benefit gained from the images or navigation menus various editors have created for this website.
Site navigation is another area my work focuses on. I want the user to be able to navigate freely between hierarchy levels as well as horizontally. Through years of surfing the web, one of the most frustrating things I’ve encountered is the inability to navigate freely through sites. I try to ensure that every page has a fixed menu with accessibility to all levels.
I hope you all will take a moment to answer the question. What is your design philosophy? Thank you for joining me again this week. I look forward to hearing some of your answers.