Rob Goodlatte

The Web is starting to look the same. Funny names, familiar color schemes, and a reflection fetish have seized the imagination of many designers and business-owners. Countless blog posts have been written detailing how to achieve that perfect “Web 2.0″ look, and the number of un-imaginative requests I receive for trendy but contextually-inappropriate designs has sky-rocketed.

It’s an interesting phenomnenon to watch. Design and culture progress through fads, and the Web is no exception. As designers we like to think we’re above fads and fashion, but that’s rarely true. There’s an allure in designing something to meet a current trend—it’s difficult to ignore. We can’t be slaves to fashion, but we also can’t ignore the cultural context of our work.

Adrian Shaughnessy, in the book How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, has this to say on the subject of fashion, fads, and originality:

“Designers are locked in an interconnecting matrix of tradition and shared sensibility. All designers can hope to do is aquire a voice, a fingerprint, that they can call their own” p. 136

Design doesn’t take place in a cultural vacuum, and it shouldn’t. Effective design taps into the culture that produced it. Conversely, bad design is often mere regurgitation of cultural trends. The designer’s job is to be aware of the whole context of a project, and from that context ask, then solve the design problems at hand. To me, that’s what having a voice is all about.

If there’s commonality between your work it should be the result of your design process imparted uniquely on each project. Your trademark shouldn’t be rounded corners and starburst shapes, but your approach to tackling design problems.

Photo by r0b0r0b under Creative Commons

1. Fausto July 27th at 7:15 am

   bad design is often mere regurgitation of cultural trends.
   your work it should be the result of your design process imparted uniquely on each project.

   You are 100% right.

   I’m working for an Ad Agency and including inside clients come to the design department asking for a look like this site or that website.

   I think a designer must find ways to educate the client and tell him that we gonna develop something good for him and for his audience.

   Good post, it makes me think.

2. Andrew July 27th at 7:49 am

   You are right on Rob. I have wrestled with this more times than I can think.

   Do I fall back on tried and true methods? Do I use the last solution I used? In fact while writing this I just remembered a great post by Jason Santa Maria on this topic which talks a bit about this.

   They key idea is that good design never goes out of style: I remember my corporate identity class in college where we looked at companies which have rebranded themselves to “stay up on the times” or something. If the logo was good to begin with, then it will always be good, and even if now it may look dated, over time it will come back into style.

   It doesn’t really pay to follow trends, otherwise you are making a lifelong commitment which you will never achieve. Better to spend your time finding your own voice as you say.

   Good post!

3. Dan Romero July 27th at 8:10 am

   The designer’s job is to be aware of the whole context of a project, and from that context ask, then solve the design problems at hand. To me, that’s what having a voice is all about.

   Nice quote. I feel like too many people try to take a project and fit it into the current trendy style. Kind of like putting a square peg into one made for a circle.

   Although, I would also have to admit that I am guilty of this myself at times.

4. Jason Beaird July 29th at 9:20 pm

   the number of un-imaginative requests I receive for trendy but contextually-inappropriate designs has sky-rocketed

   …but I thought rounded corners, starbursts and iTunes reflections appropriate for all clients?! As Dan said above, it’s the old wrong peg for the hole scenario. As a designer, it’s your job to convince the client to go with the most appropriate peg. Sometimes that’s easier said than done, but depending on how you approach it, most clients will respect (and occasionally appreciate) a professional opinion.

5. Bobby Hewitt July 30th at 9:51 am

   Anyone have any success stories or failure stories on how to communicate to the client what’s best for him or her?

6. Baxter July 30th at 1:40 pm

   Dammit Rob, you make too much sense… and make me question quite a few design decisions on the site I’m curently in the middle of building.

7. Ben Harper August 1st at 2:28 pm

   I agree with your comments completely, but looking at your site design, I feel you may have to eat your own words.

8. Ben Harper August 1st at 2:37 pm

   Perhaps I am being too critical. You’re site does have a nice blend of styles. After a while, everything starts to look the same, but where your site shines I think is in the content layout. The footer is nice and the interior content layout on pages and the homepage is very nice.

9. el clinto August 2nd at 8:15 pm

   I agree, good post! This was refreshing to read.

10. ? August 15th at 7:45 am

    ???????~

11. Heather August 20th at 2:22 pm

    “trendy but contextually-inappropriate” is the perfect way to describe the majority of the requests we received for new features at my former company. unfortunately, web 2.0 fever had also spread to the higher-ups, so these requests were met, along with all kinds of extras, while a few of us more versed in the market but at the bottom of the chain looked on in dismay. they may be fulfilling the client’s immediate desires and, in some cases, generating new revenue streams, but in the end no one is being served well, and i’m afraid that will at some point become far too clear, with negative results.

12. Design for MySpace August 21st at 4:44 am

    I feel that u r not pretty clear about your concepts.

13. Design for MySpace August 22nd at 7:01 am

    Designers per se are loosing the identity by being inspired by too many websites and loosing originality. So this in a way is also hurting their ability to think and lend a clear voice to things

14. iiSwanSongii August 22nd at 10:18 am

    Wow…i’m glad i read this post! I was looking at my site today (always trying to improve and get better at web design) and it did cross my mind to give my site elements more depth and add reflections to the elements on the page…but I felt encouranged after I read the first few sentences to not go with fads. I definetly wasn’t making an ‘on purpose’ decision to go with that ‘fad’. I was purely subconscious…almost like i’ve seen it so much (analyzing it now) that I started to see how it might work for my site. shame on me :D

15. jose September 13th at 4:51 pm

    Are you kidding? Designers are not artists. The client determines the crap.

16. Sarkastik September 17th at 3:40 am

    Rob, no offense but aren’t some of the works in your portfolio a little too Web 2.0?? ;)

    I do agree with you. There seems to be a lot of people who are getting into design and churning out the same overused layouts. In some ways at least the web nowadays is a lot ‘prettier’ to look at, though not every site is functional. And yeah I’m guilty of following trends myself :(

    On a side note, why did ‘A List Apart’ change their layout to something more akin to a blog. Okay not a blog but it just doesn’t speak to me as a web design magazine layout. I need more oomph, more images. There was something nice and compact about the previous circa 2005 and before design. Now I get a conservative, plain feeling. A classic look can work in the longrun but argh! there’s something about their current design that just annoys me :P

    I prefer Dave Shea’s site, Mezzo Blue…….yet I spoke too soon as it to has gone under a change to a rather subtle brown palette. I liked it before: http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/resources/
    Though even his new layout gives me a better vibe than ALA’s.

17. James Anderson September 29th at 8:45 pm

    I can see both sides of this. On one hand there is only so much you can do with content and layout. I mean the most ergonomic layouts for content are not exactly varied. So once you know your content, the next step is design, and to design something so radical that it is ‘original’ may lead to something quite unsuitable also.

    I think the current trend of reflections/blog styles and starbursts etc, are because they are easy on the eye and intricate i.e. they can fit around the content without being overbearing. I am not entirely sure where web design goes from here to be honest. Not every site can be a masterpiece afterall.

    I know one thing though, I can’t wait to find out!