4 ms·

Creativity is Not Design - Design Test 2

18 points by mcav 17y ago

rriepe 17y ago
I felt it hard to read this post with an accusatory finger constantly pointing in my face. While I do agree with the point of the piece to an extent, I can't say I agree with the delivery. I found myself on the defensive even though I've taken college courses on design. I don't think an aggressive, elitist stance really ends up helping anything in this case.
- ugh 17y ago
  Do you really think this is aggressive and elitist? I found the delivery to be straightforward.
lmkg 17y ago
I work as a web analyst, so I have plenty of opportunity to see, quantitatively, just how important design is, and how often it's missing. Pretty but poorly-designed websites often under-perform by a factor of 10 compared to industry averages, for metrics as simple and basic as bounce rate or conversion rate. Just with exposure to some of the basic stumbling blocks I've seen sites trip on, I have enough domain-specific common sense to figure out about half of those questions. I think the author exaggerates the divide between creativity and design, although not by much. I couldn't make a web site to save my life, because my creativity is zero, but when someone else makes one I have enough of a sense of design to know what they did wrong. So creativity is still necessary in design work.
- DougBTX 17y ago
  My understanding of the relationship: if you want to design something, you must optimise your solution under a set of constraints; creativity is one of those constraints. With more creativity come more possible solutions. Then it depends on your ability whether you find a better solution, or get lost in distractions.
blehn 17y ago
Andy's thesis, "Creativity is not design," is pretty obvious. I'm not sure anyone ever defined creativity as design. What I think he means is, "Design is not creative," and I think that's pretty short-sighted. Design is not art, it is, however, problem-solving, and being a good problem-solver requires a capacity to think creatively. Creative design doesn't mean ignoring accepted principles of hierarchy, spacing, etc. Design goes deeper than that. For example, think about the way that Google has implemented it's own cross-browser CSS button style. The button doesn't look very different, but Google designers were smart enough to know that the variety of default browser buttons detracted from their brand. Google designers (very creatively) devised a solution that is lightweight, accessible, looks the same across browsers, etc.
- DougBTX 17y ago
  "Creativity is not design," is pretty obvious His other point is that design can be obvious to some people, but not others.
- dannytatom 17y ago
  How is design not art?
  - EnderMB 17y ago
    A lot of Art boffins claim that to be Art it must not have any useful serving function. By rule, design is built around rules and is useful to the user by making browsing easier.
    - jeremyswank 17y ago
      i submit that painting and music are also goverened by rules. they are clearly art forms. the cutting of film for dramatic effect is governed by rules, and the cinema is an art form. and in at man cases, art is useful. its best exemplars serve cultural identity. they educate and broaden experience (the best artworks are not just objects, but experiences). i could go on...
  - blehn 17y ago
george_morgan 17y ago
Lots of evidence of Bauhaus quasi-mystic ideas in this test, talking about the 'energy' of a composition, 'visual influence'. All ideas rooted in early 20th century abstract expression, which I suppose are now widely accepted but are by no means the universal truths they were presented as. Some mid-century rational design thrown in for good measure, swiss grid systems etc. which are under going something of a renaissance through their recent discovery by web designers, but they also aren't a universal panacea for design ills. You need only look as far as Jan Tschichold's (a prominent exponent of modern typography) return to traditional typographic forms in his later career for evidence of this. I don't doubt his assertation that there are a lot of incompetent charlatans in graphic and web design, but I do think his view that modern design educators are failing their students is probably due to many of them having moved on from the Bauhaus/Swiss modernism touch points he seems so firmly attached to.
John_F_Miller 17y ago
I am not a designer. There that's out of the way. What I am is a one person shop working on my own project when I'm not working for the MAN. I hope that some day I will be successful enough to hire a great web designer at $10000/hr but until then It would be nice if the author would help to improve the general knowledge of design instead of presenting it as a black art only bestowed upon the eleits.

18 points by mcav 17y ago

I felt it hard to read this post with an accusatory finger constantly pointing in my face. While I do agree with the point of the piece to an extent, I can't say I agree with the delivery. I found myself on the defensive even though I've taken college courses on design. I don't think an aggressive, elitist stance really ends up helping anything in this case.

ugh 17y ago
Do you really think this is aggressive and elitist? I found the delivery to be straightforward.

lmkg 17y ago

I work as a web analyst, so I have plenty of opportunity to see, quantitatively, just how important design is, and how often it's missing. Pretty but poorly-designed websites often under-perform by a factor of 10 compared to industry averages, for metrics as simple and basic as bounce rate or conversion rate. Just with exposure to some of the basic stumbling blocks I've seen sites trip on, I have enough domain-specific common sense to figure out about half of those questions. I think the author exaggerates the divide between creativity and design, although not by much. I couldn't make a web site to save my life, because my creativity is zero, but when someone else makes one I have enough of a sense of design to know what they did wrong. So creativity is still necessary in design work.

DougBTX 17y ago
My understanding of the relationship: if you want to design something, you must optimise your solution under a set of constraints; creativity is one of those constraints. With more creativity come more possible solutions. Then it depends on your ability whether you find a better solution, or get lost in distractions.

blehn 17y ago

Andy's thesis, "Creativity is not design," is pretty obvious. I'm not sure anyone ever defined creativity as design. What I think he means is, "Design is not creative," and I think that's pretty short-sighted. Design is not art, it is, however, problem-solving, and being a good problem-solver requires a capacity to think creatively. Creative design doesn't mean ignoring accepted principles of hierarchy, spacing, etc. Design goes deeper than that. For example, think about the way that Google has implemented it's own cross-browser CSS button style. The button doesn't look very different, but Google designers were smart enough to know that the variety of default browser buttons detracted from their brand. Google designers (very creatively) devised a solution that is lightweight, accessible, looks the same across browsers, etc.

DougBTX 17y ago
"Creativity is not design," is pretty obvious His other point is that design can be obvious to some people, but not others.
dannytatom 17y ago
How is design not art?
- EnderMB 17y ago
  A lot of Art boffins claim that to be Art it must not have any useful serving function. By rule, design is built around rules and is useful to the user by making browsing easier.
  - jeremyswank 17y ago
    i submit that painting and music are also goverened by rules. they are clearly art forms. the cutting of film for dramatic effect is governed by rules, and the cinema is an art form. and in at man cases, art is useful. its best exemplars serve cultural identity. they educate and broaden experience (the best artworks are not just objects, but experiences). i could go on...
- blehn 17y ago

george_morgan 17y ago

Lots of evidence of Bauhaus quasi-mystic ideas in this test, talking about the 'energy' of a composition, 'visual influence'. All ideas rooted in early 20th century abstract expression, which I suppose are now widely accepted but are by no means the universal truths they were presented as. Some mid-century rational design thrown in for good measure, swiss grid systems etc. which are under going something of a renaissance through their recent discovery by web designers, but they also aren't a universal panacea for design ills. You need only look as far as Jan Tschichold's (a prominent exponent of modern typography) return to traditional typographic forms in his later career for evidence of this. I don't doubt his assertation that there are a lot of incompetent charlatans in graphic and web design, but I do think his view that modern design educators are failing their students is probably due to many of them having moved on from the Bauhaus/Swiss modernism touch points he seems so firmly attached to.

John_F_Miller 17y ago

I am not a designer. There that's out of the way. What I am is a one person shop working on my own project when I'm not working for the MAN. I hope that some day I will be successful enough to hire a great web designer at $10000/hr but until then It would be nice if the author would help to improve the general knowledge of design instead of presenting it as a black art only bestowed upon the eleits.