Thoughts on Design

I Am Not A Graphic Designer

While much of what we do as Communication Designers still involves aesthetic choices and artistic skills (craft), our professional practice revolves around a message-driven design discipline that involves research, learning, concept development, structuring and presentation of messages designed to facilitate better understanding within an audience.

A fascinating post at We’re Not Wired Right. I’ve often had difficulty describing what I do as a graphic designer, and honestly, I don’t think this is going to help much. The change is past due however. Graphic design isn’t what it used to be. The field has expanded so much that most of what we do isn’t covered by the term any more. Communications designer is the new term being used by people in this field to encompass what graphic design has turned into.

For now my business cards will still say graphic designer. When people ask what I do, I’ll probably still say graphic design. From this point forward however, I am a Communications Designer.

Douglas Karr is linking to a John Chow post called My Name Is My Domain List. Interesting, why do some people choose to use their name as their URL? My reason was similar to Mr. Karr’s.

“My companies, jobs, and websites might come and go - but I’m sticking with my name.”

I work on a lot of other people’s sites, and I wanted some place to be just me. To say what I thought about graphic design and web design, with no association to a business or organization. I thought it was only appropriate that I use my name for it. Since my last name isn’t easy to spell or remember, I simply went with my last initial instead. Am I a narcissist? I think all designers have to have a little of that in them, but I do think Douglas T dot com has a nice ring to it.

I had a little difficulty coming up with adds for my list. Most of the ones that I thought of were blogger.com, wordpress.com, or typepad.com sites. For now I’ll just add Andy Rutledge who I only recently discovered.

***Start Copying Here***

1. Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.
2. COPY the ENTIRE List below and add it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can accessible for, go ahead and change the titles of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.
3. Take “My Adds” and move them into the “My Originals” list.
4. Add 3 Brand New Narcissistic Bloggers that you know of

My Adds:
Andy Rutledge
Douglas T - mine of course

The Originals:
Chris Baggott - Email Marketing
Pat Coyle - Sports Marketing
Ade Olonoh - Software Entrepreneur

Bob Buskirk
Jon Waraas
David Lithman
Gary Lee
Ed Lau
John Chow dot Com
Nate Whitehill
Stephen Fung
Michael Kwan
Jeff Kee
Stuart Hanning
Hannes Johnson
Nomar
Nathan Drach
Saman Sadeghi
Douglas Karr - On Influence and Automation
***Stop Copying Here***

456 Berea Street linked to two brilliant posts by Andy Rutledge yesterday on the subject of web standards. Rutledge is writing about something that has been a point of interest with me for quite some time. Web standards, and why designers are not embracing them. Personally, I’ve always thought of standards compliance as a way of making sure that my websites are reliably viewed by as many people as possible. If a site falls short of modern standards in some way, there is likely a group of people who cannot view the site correctly because of this deficiency. Web design is about communication. If you are excluding people from receiving your message because you’re refusing to work towards standards compliance, you’re failing in your task.

“For when characteristics of Web design and development quality are mischaracterized or when search engine optimizing/indexing purpose is perverted or improperly approached, the fabric of the Internet is damaged.”- Design View / Andy Rutledge - Web Standards: it’s about quality, not compliance

I make no secret of the fact that my career has primarily been spent in graphic design. While in some sense this doesn’t benefit me as a web designer, in some sense it does. Print design always has limitations and specifications. If the client wants to print in one color, a perfect four-color design doesn’t gain me anything. On the same theme, if my perfect design is supplied to the printer in a less than perfect format, or fails to meet the printer’s specifications, it doesn’t gain me anything.

For instance at present, the Internet can no more offer a tactile experience than a print magazine can offer a video on its pages. What that means is that designers have to respect the strengths and limitations of the medium and work to communicate within the relevant context. - Design View / Andy Rutledge - Web Misunderstandards

Just as I do a disservice to my clients when my design falls short of the printer’s specifications, I also do a disservice to my clients when my web design falls short of web standards. Good design is about clearly communicating, within the limitations of the media chosen.

On Design: Learn from the Stupid: Consistency

To succeed as a design business, you must define a process, and then stick to it religiously.

In graphic design, as well as web design, consistency has it’s place. It can be an odd position for a designer to be in. In terms of design we’re expected to be unique, creative, and original, but in regards to proofing and technical specifications we’re expected to be organized and consistent. Those two opposing aspects of our job can be difficult to integrate.

Emerson said that “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds“. The key there is foolish. It’s foolish to be consistent in design, when we’re paid for originality. It’s not foolish to be consistent in proofing, quality, and the technical aspects of the job.