The Point of Design
Design exists for a very specific set of purposes. 1) to make you buy things. 2) to make information legible [so you know where and how to buy things]. 3) to make information beautiful [so that you feel all good inside, and then go buy things]. 4) to catch people's attention, and get something to stick in their mind [so they remember to go buy things].
If this sounds incredibly cynical, it isn't. Let's talk about design for a minute, and why it is such a big deal.
The Big Deal
Typography. Color. Shape. Size. Layout. Contrast. Repetition. Texture. These are all elements of design, and the basic tools of designers. The problem lies in the fact that you have access to them too, o thou who useth rainbow-colored Comic Sans with a drop-shadow. They are weapons of mass destruction! If the pen is mightier than the sword, then a Mac, loaded with design software and typefaces (yes, that's what you should actually say instead of 'fonts', at the risk of sounding like a huge nerd in front of your fellow Comicsansians...) is mightier than the tank.
Why? Because well designed information can make people think things and do things. How did you know where to get off the freeway? Some little person somewhere knew that if you were to drive 90 mph at night in the rain with poor eyesight, in order to see and assimilate the necessary information in time, the letters would need to be large, white, centered, and sans serif (no little wingy things on the tips of the letters. Also known as block letters. Or bubble letters, to the design-challenged...), on a darker, yet reflective, lit, and weather-resistant surface, at roughly fifteen feet above the road, several miles before your exit, and repeated every half-mile or so thereafter. Size, color, layout, typography, contrast, texture, repetition. Why didn't you walk into the wrong bathroom? Because even though they are not anatomically correct, attractive, colorful, moving, speaking, or flashing text, you recognize the little stick-figure man and woman on the bathroom door. It is a recognizable and consistent icon.
So aside from getting off at the right exit, and not getting thrown out of the wrong restroom, what is design good for? How about gaining the trust and confidence of a world-wide consumer base? Selling millions of books, shoes, or hamburgers? Making a hundred-million people think, "Oh my gosh—I must own an iPhone!" How about winning a campaign? Or taking over the world?
How soon do you think the world will forget the Swastika? It may well be the most despised icon in the world now, but it was once a powerful icon to which many thousands of devoted soldiers rallied. It was the symbol of an ideology and the standard of a movement that swept over the world and both changed and cost millions of lives. And it was just a bit of red, white, black, and a few basic shapes.
So are designers to blame for the Holocaust? No. But does it not show what a big deal design can be? There is probably not a single large, money-making organization that does not understand the big deal of design. That does not pay hundreds of thousands of dollars every month on marketing design projects. Which brings me to my next point.
The Difference Between Small Businesses And Big Companies
Entrepreneurs are a strange breed. One into which designers and artists like myself often fall. We have a neurotic tendency to do everything ourselves. Why pay someone else to fix my car or do my taxes if I can do it myself (with great effort, high stress, an inordinate amount of time, and bodily risk)?! Reduce expenditures at all costs!! Which is exactly what us small-business owners do. We cut corners. Then we start cutting things that are not corners. Until, in our efforts to save money, we have compromised our business image, customer relations, and sanity. It usually results in an unsustainable business/life model.
Then take a large business or corporation. While they would undoubtedly prefer to keep all their money, they choose to invest [large amounts of] it in design. They outsource to a design firm or marketing agency, and/or hire their own in-house design team and artistic director. They spend months researching, surveying, and polling before any new design is implemented (not even a 'simple' logo). Their website, though it may look simple on the front-end, involved thousands of hours of brainstorming, research, hiring freelancers, coding, designing, redesigning, and debugging. And often the more simple a website looks, the more difficult it was to make. A million dollars or more later, you don't even notice that the layout changes to look great when you pull it up on your cell phone, that it shows up at the top of Google, that you didn't have to think about how to find what you were looking for, that it reads correctly to a blind person with a talking browser, and that it even looks good in Internet Explorer. (Yes, that's right. Even though IE came installed on your computer, it doesn't mean you have to use it. Or should use it. Which you shouldn't. Don't. Please.) Why do these companies go to all the effort, you wonder? TO MAKE PEOPLE BUY THINGS!! They will make millions and millions more for having invested in good design, and they know it! Good design is always worth it. Bad design is never worth however little you may have paid (or not paid) for it.
The Moral of this Blog
OK. The point I've tried to get across today is that design is powerful. It is everywhere. And whether it is good or bad, design will always communicate. If your business has bad design, it will communicate that your business cuts corners. And possibly more than corners. If you have good design, people will believe that your attention to detail, and good taste, extends to your products and services.
Now go delete Comic Sans from your hard drive. And buy a Mac. And hire that gothic punk.
And buy Thomas Virgin Art products wherever they are sold.
~Tom
No comments:
Post a Comment