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How NOT to design

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How NOT to design Empty How NOT to design

Post by .alson Sat Aug 23, 2008 1:05 am

I just don’t get how people with fancy bachelor degrees and/or are employed at design firms are so terrible at design 1. It’s not hard to see something and know it’s pretty ugly. As blunt as it is, design has to be superficially constructed.

None of the metaphorical artsy B.S. ever helps it. I’m not even really much of a designer (I’m an animator and Illustrator). I know I do things that are not the most fantastic looking things, even with my own design. I certainly do not have any sort of fancy piece of paper (they call them degrees) that gives me the right to tell everyone what I think, but seriously; if I could teach myself enough to make it into galleries, it’s no excuse for people who do have the qualifications. I’m sorry if I come across jaded, but it needs to be said.

But enough jabber; let’s go through some commonly reoccurring design mishaps that should induce a small amount of vomit in your mouth (don’t forget to swallow).
1. Opinions expressed are obviously subjective to my taste, but if you disagree with this you are obviously pretty bad.

Bevel and emboss


How NOT to design Bevel-and-emboss

“Oh wow, I bet if I just made it 3d-looking and then dropped it in, it would look a million times better than without”
Pretty much the calling card of every Photoshop first-time user. The cause? The lack of attention to detail, and ignorance of settings. I’ll say this once as a pretty general rule: NEVER USE THE DEFAULT SETTINGS FOR ANY FILTER. I guess if it flukishly was set to what you require it’s ok, but never slap something on without controlling it, unless you want a kick in the throat. There really isn’t anything wrong with using the filters at all, but always make sure to adjust and detail before applying.
Splash pages



How NOT to design Splash

“A sweet introduction to the site would be so nice!”
Please don’t ever use these. It means a whole click and wait for the next page to load. It’s perfectly ok if it’s a holding page, but when it’s an enter page to a site - with no other option but “Enter this fantastic site because I made a button to let you do it”, you wonder why they even want you to go to their site in the first place. Splash pages are a redundant buffer. Who needs a site introduction really? If you have to introduce your site with dumb animation, or a giant button to tell people to enter it, then you are kidding yourself. Content first. Let a user see what they need to see coming to a site. Don’t give them some interactive experience bull crap, unless it will blow their mind.

Metal interfaces


How NOT to design Brushemetal

“Metal is so clean and shiny, so let’s use so much of it!”
Scratched metal, metallic interfaces, robotics, industrial. Ugh. Over-done and in most cases, terribly executed. Most of the time, it doesn’t even look like metal. It’s not techie and it doesn’t look modern. Trying to add the futuristic computer element to something you view on a computer? That’s about as lame as taking a holiday in your own backyard (if you have a fantastic backyard, just use mine instead).
Grunge


How NOT to design Grunge.thumbnail

“Oh this is too clean, so let’s beat it up and make it look rusty and hot!

Grunge is like 1985 movie poster residue. A site that looks like the inside of a badly abused toilet is definitely one that won’t make your visitors want to stay and love. It can be done well, but don’t beat things up because of lacking ideas for a clean solution. If you do grunge, don’t do it just because it’s a quick way out.
Glow effects


How NOT to design Glow.thumbnail

“Glows look so slick and futuristic”
STOP putting these on everything. Adding glows to things to make them stand out look corny. If this is the only style treatment you are aware of, you better enroll in a design life course. Like everything else, it can be used well in moderation, and in the right place; but don’t pull one out of your poop trap because your fingers are itchy. Get creative already.

No whitepace


How NOT to design Whitespace

“Let’s conserve as much room as humanly possible”
Even my high school English teacher is guilty of this. Cramming content together to save space, just makes things much to dense to take in. Readability of type and general form is essential. Breaking up elements with whitespace defines digestible chunks of information, and establishes a visual hierarchy. Don’t go butting things right up to other elements so they kiss. It looks horrible and it’s impossible to read. Balance is the key.
Boxes


How NOT to design Sbar

“Boxes are neat, so let’s only use them to wrap around everything!”

We really should be trying to push away from the mechanics of markup and instead hiding those clunky divs. Tight boxes stacked un-lovingly is stiff and dry. We live in a visual age, so get out those organic curves and open space and work the composition. Being restricted to boxes is so Internet Explorer 95.
Minimalism as an excuse


How NOT to design Minimal

“If Apple can do it, so can I!”
Minimalism needs to be damn good to work. Too many people use it as an excuse for lack of creativity. 3 pieces of text and an image is boring. It’s definitely clean, but if the details are not beautiful, it’s about as great as eating flavourless porridge.
Crappy colour


How NOT to design Colour

“These colours are playful and fun”

There’s really no excuse for horrible colour. If it looks right, it’s going to be right. If the colours look like an acid trip, don’t use them. Learn some colour theory
Debris


How NOT to design Debris

“Look, look, look. All my unimportant flickr, twitter,last.fm,facebook…etc profiles”
Tacking on every single profile link is going to make people want to leave your site, giving traffic to the others. Read this.
Gloss



How NOT to design Gloss

“SO WEB 2.0!!!”
Why do people still do this? Following every trend from any piece of web 2.0 design is sloppy. Gloss was never cool.
Gradient abuse


How NOT to design Gradients

“Hmm, looks crap. Let’s add gradients!”
If you think you are going to make a horrible colour better and have more depth by giving it a gradient, think again. Don’t use gradients that change from one colour to a completely different colour (like white to black, or red to green). Make them subtle and smooth.
Oh, I know. I’m whining, but the internet is full of such terrible (yet recent) design. There’s so much more that I could list, but these are the ones that I see far too often.



I’m not saying to never use these stylistic treatments (as people who glance over and jump the gun are complaining about), I’m saying that if you are going to use a treatment in this medium, give it some T.L.C.


Got any bad design bones to pick? Yell them angrily.

via DarkMotion
.alson
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Post by 1ruleyou Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:03 am

Sweet thanks for the NOT TOOS Very Happy
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Post by Katool Sat Aug 23, 2008 10:22 pm

GLOSS seem to be a good article to read for a tut.
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Post by 1ruleyou Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:08 am

yes
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Post by .alson Sun Aug 24, 2008 12:59 pm

But seriously, don't just "gloss" everything you see. Think, does it really look like being glossy? no.
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Post by 1ruleyou Sun Aug 24, 2008 2:13 pm

Or does it really NEED to be glossy!
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Post by :KrAzY Sun Aug 24, 2008 2:22 pm

Insactly, plain is the simplest Answer

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Post by Havok Tue Aug 26, 2008 6:03 pm

Haha, Ya

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Post by .alson Wed Aug 27, 2008 5:51 am

simplicity is not the answer to everything though, in sig design, complicated is good, simplicity in sig design is lazy
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Post by 1ruleyou Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:08 pm

Right. But sometimes too complicated confuseses people.
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