ILL-CONCEIVED.COM
Have you heard the one about the client's nephew who designs websites?
He
is an ever-growing phenomenon, spawned by the very nature of the
Internet. Fresh, keen and armed with alacrity. His skills are honed and
perfected through many hours spent in darkened rooms with Dreamweaver
and a clip-art CD. HTML is second nature. Javascript no longer a
challenge. He has already mastered Flash and has had the beta version
of the forthcoming release for months. However, in his quest for
technical supremacy he has overlooked the one essential ingredient
necessary to design websites design, visual literacy, an ability to be
able to communicate an intended message to an intended audience with
both precision and style.
He is legion.
There
is a "gold-rush" mentality towards website "development" at present. An
incredible number of websites are not designed. Rather, they are "put
together" using technology-led tricks and gimmicks, with the latest
plug-ins often mistaken for content and substance. This is an
ill-conceived and short term approach to making the Internet a viable
and useful resource. Technical wizardry has never been a substitute for
a full understanding of visual communication.
In the
early 1990s, when desktop publishing first became popular and
accessible, companies (even the large companies) began producing their
literature in-house, using publishing packages under the guides of
people who had previously spent their days typing the Chief Executive's
letters or ordering stock for the stationery cupboard. This continued
for about 5 years. Fortunately, such short-termism in this area has all
but ceased to be a viable business practice. Companies have since
realised that a corporate identity must be exactly that a unified
approach to placing themselves within their marketplace. This must
extend right through the ranks. Aside from corporate standing, it gives
employees a sense of pride and direction. As soon as a well thought-out
identity is undermined by the post-boy's attempt to design a poster
announcing that there is to be an extraordinary general meeting of the
shareholders, using the ubiquitous champagne glass, bubbles and ribbon
in the top left hand corner employees begin to lose the sense of the
company they work for, beyond their daily tasks.
This
scenario was indicative of a general DIY (do-it-yourself) approach to
design and communication that became invasive throughout many business
sectors at that time. To an extent, this mentality left a legacy.
The
general quality of business communication has declined considerably
over the past few years. Copy is now written by the technical director
and never sees the desk of a copywriter or sub-editor. Grammar is, at
best, shoddy. Images are often taken by So-and-so in sales. He's good
with a camera, we'll get him to do it. Processed at
"speedyphotos-u-like" and arriving on your desk with fingerprints all
over them and dog-eared corners. Worse still, scanned at 120ppi on the
scanner in the marketing department with no hope of finding an original
image any longer.
A major factor for companies taking
this approach was economic recession and a general unease regarding
market strengths. In the process of streamlining and cutting costs, the
quality of business communication was sacrificed for savings. This
ethos appears to have survived, thankfully at a much reduced level,
shored up by ever-increasing accessibility of technology.
Although
the Internet and its development are a different issue, the DIY
approach seems to be burgeoning here as well. That is not to say that
the Internet should only be the domain of the design professional. The
spirit of unhindered traffic of information on any given subject is one
that should be lauded and protected. To advocate undermining this by
imposing a set of visual rules for every new site would be counter to
the rudiments of the Internet.
The area of business
communication, however, has an additional set of criteria above and
beyond the usual governances of the Internet; criteria which are
largely ignored by a battery of website developers. Small companies
springing up everywhere are charging other businesses unwarranted sums
of money for websites that are patently not going to do the job. These
website development companies are technology and development-driven.
They approach the whole area of website creation from the standpoint of
blinding with science, rather than meeting a client's needs. A website
is as much an exercise in communication as any printed literature and
must be approached in the same systematic way. It is naive to assume
that the issues of technology and communication can be treated
separately; it is equally inappropriate to design a website which is an
exercise in aesthetic genius, but is static and adds no value to the
Web as a whole. There has to be a balance; a site must be both
functional and able to communicate its message effectively.
With
the Internet in such a state of flux, this is a difficult issue to
resolve at present. Technology is allowing potentially great advances,
but until issues such as connectivity and cross-browser compatibility
are resolved, its full potential is going to remain elusive. Further,
no matter how functional and transparent that technology becomes, you
still need to make people comfortable enough to want to stay and ingest
the information contained in a site, irrespective of the wizardry
behind it.
Until relatively recently, the Internet has
been something businesses only got on for fear that the
cyber-revolution would pass them by. They are now becoming more aware
of the potential gains to be had from a Web presence. Only when
companies no longer listen to the hype and become more educated about
what the Internet really is, and what it has to offer, will things
truly level out. In addition to a better balance between design and
technology, this will mean that those who offer no real substance will
begin to lose foothold.
Fortunately, a barely
perceptible shift has already taken place. Larger organizations and
companies are beginning to see that the Internet is as competitive as
any other business environment, if not more so. This forces them to
consider the role of both design and technology in producing viable
websites. Many are already spending the time, effort and money required
to produce a resource which has approachable functionality combined
with a coherent corporate strategy.
In the future, all
the industries committed to providing Web development services will
find that they can no longer rely on just one facet of either visual or
technological input, if they are to remain competitive, in much the
same way printers can no longer get away with producing everything in
centered 12/14 Helvetica regular, no matter how beautifully it is
printed. So the legions engaged in the darkened-room approach to
website design should take heed. The time is fast approaching when they
will be forced to open the curtains and see what is going on outside or
remain forever in the dark.
About this article
The above article is reprinted from Visual Arts Trends, with permission. 2000, Visual Arts Trends.
About the Author
Keith Williams is an honors graduate (BA) of the Birmingham School of
Art and Design at the University of Central England, with a major in
graphic design and visual communications. After graduation, Keith spent
several years at Radley Yeldar, a London, UK-based firm specializing in
annual reports and corporate literature for the financial market. Since
establishing his own design consultancy, he has completed varied
brochure, catalog and general collateral assignments for companies as
well-known as Microsoft, Mazda, London Electricity and MacLaren Cars.
Much of his work has been in the music industry, including design of
CDs and related worldwide promotional material for The Beatles, Paul
McCartney, Ry Cooder and Ravi Shankar. Presently, in addition to being
the European editor of Visual Arts Trends, Keith's activities are
increasingly focused on Web design for a varied client base, including,
Correx Plastics, Bernard Ellis Early Stringed Instruments and various
Local council, Government and EC-funded projects.
About Visual Art Trends
With offices in New York and London, Visual Arts Trends is an
international quarterly "state of the industry" report for the creative
professional. Focusing on graphic design, advertising art direction,
photography and illustration, each report offers a brief,
business-oriented, definitive and timely overview of industry
developments that affect aesthetics, pricing, salaries, working
conditions and client relations. Visual Arts Trends combines unique
proprietary research with material gathered by monitoring hundreds of
publications, companies, membership organizations, online sources, and
other relevant sources of information. The reports review and analyzes
professional trends by business category and by specialization. In
addition, each report profiles
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