Freshdan

Things All Designers Should Know, Do, Avoid, etc. (Part I)

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

1. Don't be afraid of color. Monochromatic designs cause disease (This hasn't been scientifically proven, so don't hold me to it).

2. If you honestly, truthfully, love something you have designed, you're arrogant. Get over yourself.

3. If you're driving for more than five minutes you should have passed enough signs, billboards, adverts, etc. for you to have named three typefaces used on them.

4. Oh, that reminds me. Fonts and Typefaces are NOT the same thing. Look it up.

5. I hate when someone asks, "Hey, name a famous designer..." and people's first response is David Carson. David Carson is a tool. And if their first response isn't Carson, it's Paul Rand. Well, Paul Rand was an asshole (unfortunately). The most underrated designer of this century is Lester Beall and not just because of the work he did, but because he wasn't a tool or an asshole.

6. Light gray text on the web is not cool. When you're laying something out it may look good, but stop for a second and actually try reading it.

7. Never ever, ever, ever write code that changes the size of my browser window (That's for you Masuga).

8. You or your client likes to write? Fantastic, well write the content for your site and then cut that in half. Then for shits and giggles, cut that in half. Then, you might have something I'd be willing to take the time to read.

10. For you usability/optimization freaks out there: People who are still riding the 56k train are use to waiting around, so stop sacrificing image quality for us broadbanders.

11. If you design web banners for a living, thats like coming into my neighborhood and selling drugs. No one wants them here and I hate you for doing it.

12. Never use the word fanboy. Let's do our best to erradicate that word. I am sick of it. If I have to see someone calling someone a fanboy one more time on Digg.com I will scream.

13. You should never consider going to bed before 12:00 a.m. What's the point?

14. Like Beethoven was born with an innate ability to play music, true designers are born with an innate understanding of all things gestalt. The person who designed http://www.hvysl.org was not. Haha, oh man do I get a kick out of that site.

15. The font "Arial" is actually a cheaply modified "Helvetica." Not surprisingly, Microsoft "borrowed" Helvetica and made some tweaks to it to make it "more legible" on screen, slapped a new name on it, and bundled it with their OS. Now the inferior Arial holds a san-serif monopoly on computers worldwide. Oh, and Microsoft's Verdana is ugly too. (Credit -http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/)

16. When I was taking my first design classes in school they only allowed us to use four typefaces: Helvetica, Lubalin Graph, Garamond, and Bodoni. This was single-handedly the most important lesson of my design education.