The rule of functionality

Design has certainly to do with arts and crafts. But it is neither one of them. Good design is rather based on analysis, experience, cause and effect—all together rather scientific definitions—than it is an art. If something was designed well, it is unobtrusive, and using it will feel smoothly. It won’t make you think a lot about how it was made, about how pretty it is, or how well you can use it. A good designer has removed all barriers that made using the designed matter a rough and unpleasant experience.

Reducing design to its core purpose, functionality, doesn’t make it less pleasant. It doesn’t mean design has to be dull, boring, or making the designed matter uninvitingly cold. The point is, whatever is added or used for the design, needs to fulfill a purpose. Every little detail needs to serve the core, the essence of the matter that is designed.

The rule of attraction

Decorative elements in design have a purpose too: To give you a certain feeling about the spirit of the thing you are using. Be it a car, a building, a picture frame, file folder, headset or the food on your plate. A decorative element has the purpose of completing the image, of expressing the values you see in this matter.

Seeing the beauty of a design bears a danger of focusing on making it look good instead of making it work. Making a thing work the best way it can work isn’t an easy task. It requires a sharp eye for details, combined with a mindset that is able to grasp the big picture. It requires you to think outside the box, find and focus the essence of what you are designing and at the same time you need to be able to cut things off, simply because they don’t work. And this is what seems to be the hardest thing for most designers. They can’t let go of “pretty”.

So you see drop shadows, color fades, flower patterns, ornaments, frames, outlines and round corners all over the web, because these are the things that make something look nice. It is of course a debatable question wether the use of those graphic elements do or don’t fulfill a purpose. But in most cases they don’t.

If design looks beautiful, it should come out of simplicity and elegance, and because it makes you want to touch and use it. You can see this with everything you decide to get. From a mountain bike to a house—even the choice of your life partner is based on what you like about them. Beauty may be a part of your reasons, but in the end, you like who or what they are and how well they go with you. The mountain bike of your choice will be the one you spend a lot of time with, and the reason why you chose it over other bikes was not the pretty sticker on its frame. You chose it because it was the best designed on many levels, the best bike you could get for the money you had.

Beauty is a result of good design. But if you set beauty as your goal, you the surface in charge of your judgment. You can easily lose track of what is important. Suddenly, your choices for color, typography, any graphic element you used in your design become irrelevant and replaceable. Which is the main reason why your client should never be able to say “Can you show it in green?”.

The rule of consistency

Every web- and print designer knows this sentence. It’s replaceable with “can you enlarge the font” or “my wife didn’t like pink in the logo”. In short terms, all these sentences mean the client didn’t get your design. And neither did you.

Because if you can not explain why you chose red over green, you didn’t do your job properly as a designer. This goes back to “every element has a purpose”. If your client asks “can you show it in green” and you did your homework, then your answer can be a confident “no”. But it shouldn’t come out of stubbornness or wrong pride. It should be the right answer, because you did your job and went through a thought-process to find the best set of colors. Irrelevance and randomness are your biggest enemy here, not the client asking for variation.

Clients asking for variation happens out of natural reasons. Clients are insecure about their choices, just like you are insecure about which is the best mountain bike you can get for money. You want to do some research before you settle for a solution, and so does your client. In order to make him understand why you chose red over green, you will have to guide him through your thought-process. You will have to show him what made you think red was better than green and have him agree with you. Following this pattern, selling your work will become a lot easier.

Be consistent with your decisions. If a client’s brand is about human spirit, then it should show in your resulting work. If it is about sophistication, then your design choices should naturally result in expressing sophistication. And contrary to popular belief, true sophistication is not about making it golden or glittery. It is often more about simple and pure elegance, a subtleness that makes one stop and look closer.

Whatever your direction is, it should be singular, and you should stick to it. That means you consequently leave away cluttering elements and anything that doesn’t support this one direction. But in order to know that direction, you first have to find it.

The rule of direction

Just yesterday I was asked to show someone a variety of styles. I don’t blame the client; it is a valid request. If you are involved in any sort of design, be it information architecture, software design, development or interface design, you should know your arts and crafts. You should be capable to use the tools that get you there.

But the reasons why you are hired shouldn’t be your versatility in styles. It should be because you know how to take something, find its essence and make that core work in the best way it can.

This ability is what makes you a great designer. From that point on, your job title may bring more responsibility, it may be based on your leadership skills, your ability to analyse or conceptualize and create streamlined results. You may be a great sales person or a creative director. At the core of taking something and shaping it to a useful idea always stands design.

A great designer has one style, and that is to make people understand what he or she is doing. It is not always something that can be explained easily. But it should become visible through your work.

Say, you are a creative director in an advertising agency. It was my position for several years, so I know what I’m talking about. Leading several creative teams, and making them find the path that leads to the best result you can deliver to your clients, is never a trivial task.

As a creative director, it is your primary job to give direction. And you do this best by taking what your creative teams show you and pin-point the essence of what you are finding. It doesn’t only mean working with them closely and repeat processes until they are going in a good direction. It also means challenging them and yourself over and over, asking the root questions of what the designed matter is about: What does it do? How can we make it work the best way?