Stop hawking styles, and start designing
Our design studio is run by two old people. Frank is on the edge of 34 years old and Vivian is not far behind, which means we’re technically millennials. Born in 1982, we’re a bit too young to be disillusioned Gen Xers, but a bit too old for “the struggle is real.” We’re in this strange middle zone where we can soberly evaluate what’s being created for audiences both north and south of us. Aside from chatting to each other about the stock market at all ages raves (no, really), our vantage as old ass millennials on the periphery proves to be especially valuable when looking at the current landscape of design.
Like most other people with eyeballs, we’ve been noticing an undeniable flavour of trendy, that’s-so-hot-right-now web design setting firmly upon us. This is by no means a new conversation, and even this post itself falls into a sea of sameness… but we figure it can’t hurt to bring up again. We’re doing our little part to help stop the madness.
The rise of “fast design”
When talking about the quickly evolving face of cheap clothing, trends are referred to as “fast fashion.” These quick moving styles are inexpensive to produce and have no staying power. They’re throwaway pieces that you can’t wash more than twice (but that doesn’t matter since it won’t be in next season anyway). Our current era of fast visual design falls into the same traps. These shallow design trends proliferate quickly — like Norwalk on a cruise ship — and become commoditized. They’re disposable, not ownable, and eventually look boring when everyone out there adopts the same look and feel.
Back away from the bandwagon
Many of the trends we’re identifying seem geared towards the millennial market — which totally makes sense because it’s huge. We’re not sure if these designs are created by millennial designers themselves, or by companies that are trying to speak in a supposed millennial visual language, but either way it doesn’t change the fact that we’re drowning in a flood of decoration.
A lot of what we’re seeing is no more than style shucking. Look through dribbble, look through Behance or Pinterest — you start to notice sameness. Style isn’t design. Design solves a problem. Meaningless decoration and style treatments fuse a design to a moment in time. That isn’t to say a design needs to be totally timeless in order to be successful, but in our opinion it should aim to be as timeless as possible, which is easier to achieve when the design is rooted in sound principles, rather than built on constantly shifting trends.
The start of a new year always seems to motivate businesses to regroup on their corporate culture and philosophies, which usually manifests as an Exciting New Website™. Let’s take a closer look at some of these design trends and make a pact to avoid them in 2016…
Welcome to Crazy Gradient Town. Population: everyone.
Thanks to Apple and Bloomberg making it ok, crazy gradients are everywhere. They’re a recent chapter in the revolt against stark whitespace, extremely eye-catching, bold, and fun to use. They feel super of the times and will stick around for another year, give or take. We’re likely all guilty of using these to some degree, but we should probably stop soon. Why? Because blindly subscribing to such an overt trendy style is a disservice to your client. Loud gradients like this usually have no conceptual foundation beyond “look at me!” They’re essentially digital manbuns, destined to be the mullets of the future.
Just look at these 2015 Year in Review websites. The majority of them are extremely well-designed and arguably groundbreaking, but it’s like they were created by a single AI who absorbed the current state of web design and oozed out a thick, colourful goop.
It’s amazing to think that these were all being designed independently of one another in October/November in anticipation of their big year-end reveals. Surely a lot of the talented teams working on the designs expected them to stand out by having such a bold visual character. However, by following the seductive siren call of trendy styling, they actually achieved the opposite effect. It’s really weird that something as bright and loud as a crazy gradient can actually start to look boring after seeing them over and over. We wonder if next year’s round of review sites will be dominated by non-gradient treatments and subdued/stark whitespace, designed by those who were burned by this round of bandwagoning.
Clients invest a lot of money on design solutions to help them achieve business and communication goals. They often hinge critical aspects of their business on design. If the design foundation is eroded by meaningless decoration, how do you explain to the client in 18 months that their visual identity or website is now generic and played out?
The Takeaways
Design trends ebb and flow. An effective solution needs to be founded in good principles that go beyond style and decoration. Stop regurgitating the stylistic flavour of the month. Sell your clients design solutions that are unique, lasting, and ownable—not your take on what’s hot right now.
Only you can prevent meaningless overlaps
We’re not sure when this trend of text positioned awkwardly over photos started happening, but the first couple times we encountered it we were pretty confused. “We’re getting too old for this shit” was probably muttered.
Maybe this is a type of millennial pandering that we just don’t get. “It’s dynamic! It’s out of the box!” they say. From a traditional design education standpoint, overlapping a portion of your text on the edge of a photo only seems to serve a decorative purpose. The main issue is that the jarring hard edge of the photo impedes legibility in most cases, which is obviously bad for your content (unless you’re trying to hide your words for some reason). This treatment is far more effective when used with large headline type, rather than paragraphs that require extra effort to read.
It could probably be argued that the overlap creates a greater connection between the text and the image. But since when did words need to be touching the photo for them to seem related? Proper wielding of design principles would achieve the same connection, without it looking like a grocery flyer:
The Takeaways
If you can use overlapping text in some meaningful and legible way, then go nuts. But most of the time it’s done for no good reason other than to fit the trend.
Content always comes first. Legibility and clarity are essential to good design. Design is a solution to a problem—in the case of web design, anything that disrupts the delivery of your content should be avoided. Care more about legibility rather than some treatment that currently looks kind of cool. Stop decorating.
It’s hard to break free
Digital design needs more unique, memorable voices, rather than an echo chamber of people that are bottling their version of the latest trend. We all see this sameness in web design, and it’s easier to succumb to it than rise above. We understand. We’re guilty of it too. Sometimes it’s more convenient to follow a successful example or framework than to challenge the forces of typical layout conventions. So much on this topic has already been written by people much more eloquent…
It’s our job as designers to help lead clients into greener pastures and explain the benefits of memorable web design. We know it’s hard and we should probably start a support group — or if one already exists, please send an invite.
2016, “Let’s do this”
Each year, the world moves faster. We become more connected, share ideas more quickly, and watch the powers of influence blaze around the globe. Let’s try to slow down and recognize that we’re designers who all have a job to do. Design is not decoration. Decoration has no place in effective design, which should strive for clarity, simplicity, and usefulness. We have a responsibility to our clients to deliver something meaningful and lasting.
Let’s push ourselves to do better in 2016.
PS: Can we all agree as designers to save LL Circular only for clients that deserve it? Lest it go the way of poor ol’ Gotham, mistreated and abused.
