l-dopa

(This is cross-posted to Monkey Kings Play)

It’s a little bit crabby, but I’ve never seen such a manifesto that so clearly discusses just what a designer does for a client and how to get it out of them.

Some nuggets:

“Just as writers are not just people who can type, designers are not just people who can use graphics programs. Good Design is more than skin deep.”

“Tell your designer what you want to say rather than how you want it to look. Don’t ask for a color, shape, or style–ask for meaning or emotion.”

I would add something to this that’s hard for everyone to swallow: if someone “likes” it, it doesn’t matter. You don’t want people to like it if something they don’t “like” works better. Google is fucking ugly and it works great. It’s not that I don’t think they should have made some design decisions in the beginning that they would be less stuck with now, but I heard many people say that they “liked” Yahoo!s terrible, confused interface, and where are they now? People also “liked” Ask Jeeves. But something was lacking in those designs.

I’ve heard from clients every so often that they don’t like a design because it’s aggressive and they’re afraid it will scare away their customers. They’re wrong. Aggressive design grabs customers and, if what the client’s selling isn’t porcupine enemas, the customers then stay and next time, they remember where they got those great porcupine-reduced enemas. And that’s a design someone won’t “like”.

Now, if that design says something you don’t want to say, be clear and tell the designer. But if it says what you want to say more strongly than you thought it was going to be said, or it says it differently, well, that’s why you hired a designer.