This article is a little old, and it was extracted from the journal el Pais. Proving what we all know, in graphic designing, less is more.
The best web pages in Internet are simply functional. They all have a concrete objective. Graphic designing has an important, yet limited roll. Don’t try to make out something that Internet is not.
Have you noticed how most of the Flash intros are gone? A couple years ago, they were everywhere. I have asked many people, from around 35 different countries, what do you do when you see a flash presentation? — I skip it– was the unanimous answer.
A Flash presentation is a bad TV announcement made by people that couldn’t design real announcements. They were all invented by graphic designers desperate for making Internet in Television, they wanted glory and fame.
In the Communication Arts Magazine awards gala. One of the winners of 2005 had beautiful designs. There was just a little problem, this designer has been categorized for his products as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8… Too intuitive. He certainly deserves the award for best graphic design in E-business.
Of course, Nike has won an award. He always gets high scores from the people that understand his designs and things like that. Nike has a web page that up to this day always has something that fails to work. I wanted to try, once again.
Nike.com still has this attempt of radical and dynamical web navigation. I click on Europe, then in English, then in Football. When I finally get into the football page, there’s an amazing picture of Thierry Henry. And right beside Thierry there’s yet another classification: Europe, Latin America, North America, Asia/Pacific. This is sadly, no joke.
No one will ever allow this man to design circulation signals for the streets. Nonetheless, when graphic designers design a dynamic-navigational web site they win awards. Why do we still have a bunch of people that cannot understand the correct functioning of Internet after so many years?
The old “Intenet is something new and cutting edge†excuse is no longer available in stock, sorry! Why can’t Google or Skype win this type of awards? Why “art†and “innovation†are limited to cliches that demand high-impacting visuals in a page?
Out there, there are hundreds of young and inexpertly graphic designers that are receiving a very mislead message. Internet by nature is a functional space, with specific objectives. If you want a “avant-garde†design, go to Google, Skype, Ebay, Amazon. These pages earn money by satisfying real needs.
You web page has to be functional. It has to be quick and convincing, with an user-friendly navigation and dummy-proof. Internet is not a TV commercial, it’s simply Internet.
