Elegant. Efficient. Enthusiastic. These are the tenets I design by.
Most designers may have an answer when asked, "what's your design style?" And although my actual experience in design work is admittedly limited, I couldn't define my creative ideas beyond what I have in mind every time I sit down to solidify a design—and that is the principles I've mentioned above. Exploring new styles and experimentations with elements of established design methods is always interesting, and often serve as to how designers and artists innovate today. However, I think, the mentioned tenets of efficiency, elegance, and enthusiasm are constant in any good design and serve as the foundation to my work and creative process.
Efficient.
People like fast things. This is why before beginning the design on any project, I lay out the architecture of the website. I gain several things from this:
- Number of screens and their shared elements
- User-navigation
- User-concentration per page
Additionally, having a birds-eye view of your project's structure allows you to imagine how a user would interact with and navigate through your site, as well as the time they would spend on each page. What and where does information need to be consistent? What should change? How does this affect the design? These are the questions that need to be kept in mind before designing aesthetics.
Elegant.
People like pretty things. And the job of a designer is usually perceived to be as simple as that: make things pretty and make pretty things. But if you asked ten people about one logo's design, you would get ten different answers. This is why designing things to simply *look good* often isn't enough—it's missing an intention and a context for interpretation which ascribes its beauty. Elegance, on the other hand, is something more permanent. Elegance relies on a simplicity that is separate from the interpreted context of simple aesthetics. Its simplicity and neatness speak for themselves, leaving out nothing essential.
To achieve this, I draft ideas and concepts and pair them at first with a color palette to match an existing brand or similar brands. Then, I select typography that best fits the amount of information on the website and the identity of the client. Having defined the typography and color palette, now I am able to apply these styles to elements on the website and its navigation.
Enthusiastic.
People like others with similar interests. This is plainly evident when you consider how you would perhaps work on a self-designed project versus how you would work on an assigned project. The only difference between the two is that the latter feels like homework, and you're constantly aware of that throughout its development. That's why I bring up this point: pick clients whose work you have a vested interest with. And that's right, I said "pick" your clients, because otherwise you will end up with work you don't like and reviews from people who you don't work well with. Without enthusiasm for the work you are doing, the other two tenets fall short.
The process of developing, drafting, and testing a project is why I became a web developer - I love the process! Creating a product that bundles aesthetic appeal, intuitive functionality, and meaningful effect is what I love to do. However, an optimal developer-client relationship is not always possible, which is why I reflect on these principles when choosing the work I do.