I went into the college dorm roommate experience blind. I was assigned an Art and Design student that ended up teaching me a lot about design principles. When we think of a student drawing a scene we often see potential in their creation. However, my roommate's work always struck me as being refined and complete. His work conveyed an obvious sense that he understood how elements worked together to create a much larger piece of art. His work was easy on the eyes; there was no need to look for meaning as it often just came to you through osmosis.
As I began reading blog posts on web design, I came to realize how intricate design can be. Simplicity is usually the goal, but it is so difficult to achieve in a design. I am pondering this topic because I created this very blog from scratch. All your praise and criticism can be directed at me. I didn't jack a template from the web for this blog. I realize the challenges that face many front-end designers aren't immediately solvable. There often is a "gray" area, so to speak, in design. A personal, subjective touch that makes it unique and fresh.
In this way I have tried to push the boundaries. I am conscious of the issues in my design. The font of the articles is fairly dull and uninteresting to read. The elements don't work together as well as they could. I am constantly tweaking these little things to see what works. I don't envision myself designing webpages later in my career, but I think struggling with these concepts now will help me understand in the future the frustration of a designer.
I recently signed up for Quora - a platform for asking questions and discovering answers. I came across this post on design principles today. One of the responses includes a discussion about the difference between colors that share similar saturation and colors that share similar whiteness. The responses I read agreed on a few things about web design. First, there is a science to how you create the foundation of your design. But since we know little about humans and their visual perception of colors, a big element of design comes down to a personal touch. The synthesis of using good principles and exercising creativity leads to something that can be incredibly powerful.
Believe it or not some web services create heat maps for your webpage. They show web designers exactly where on the page their users clicked. I plan on using something like this in the future. I can only imagine how powerful a tool like this must be for a designer trying to determine how effective a new layout is for users. If a menu is too sensitive, users might all be clicking a certain corner of a button. I find user behavior like this to be fascinating. Collecting data simply on where a user clicks a webpage can open a whole new field of opportunities for designers.
Please, if something is bothering you about my blog tell me! If I'm using Helvetica and you think Arial would be far better, explain your reasoning. I'm curious. Fonts make up a huge subset of design. I have very limited knowledge of their history, usage, and purpose.
I know someone who holds strong opinions on the use of fonts in different contexts. I distinctly remember her complaining about how one font looked hideous and how another very specific font should have been used. Steve Jobs was fascinated with typography and mentioned the college classes he "attended" that taught him many of the foundations of printed matter. I remember him speaking on this topic at his Stanford commencement speech. Awareness of this form of thinking helps you appreciate true beauty when you see it.
-Matt