In graphic design the hardest things are actually the simple ones. Sure it sounds a bit stupid, but when you think about the rule of “Less is more” and then look at the big letter “a”, written in helvetica on a white background you can see that it’s not actually all peaches and cream.
Simplicity in webdesign is often refferred to as “minimalism”, which basically says it all. Something “minimalist” (-ic) is something simple, an expression of content/function with very little form.
This form can of course has it’s saturation levels – we can have a nicely designed website with just the text. Various typefaces, paddings and margins working together to create something that’s nice to the eye.
But that would probably be considered ultra-minimalism, so let’s move on.
Another step is adding a couple of elements like a background here, a divider line there, but still keeping it simple with as little colors, gradients, photography as possible. And this is where the hard part starts.
We all know that graphically rich and intense websites can hide their content flaws in a lot of flashes and eyecandy. With minimalism we don’t have that comfort, so everything has to be in place. Considering typefaces, font-sizes for different elements is crucial for the whole thing to look good while still being minimalist. If you want to make minimal websites it’s best to look around first and get some inspiration (that doesn’t mean copy+paste! ;))
I think every designer should have at least a couple of those minimal sites in his/hers portfolio among all those beloved graphically intense sites that we’re all so proud of.
Guess what! Next june it’ll be obsolete as a new one will emerge and you’ll most likely want one. And even if not that next iteration, you’ll want the one two years after that. After all in technology two years can make a huge difference. So ok, where’s the problem – you ask. We’ll get to it on a little bit. So after a while your old phone / camera gets thrown away, you get the new one. And so forth. But since the production right now is so high, and making the components takes a lot of resources, energy and such – when will we run out of the parts from which we can make the new electronic wonder-gadget?
Whoa, didn’t expect Adobe to release such a fun and actually useful mobile app for free. Since mobile photoshop for the iphone is a big disappointment I wasn’t expecting much from “Ideas”. But trust me it’s perfect.
Expansion in the creative field is a must nowadays, since everything seems to be running faster than us. The technology, other designers, recession of the currency. And so on. So we either try to outdo ourselves in one area – focusing on being great at one specific tasks – and hoping that we will be chosen because of the amount of skill we have. Or we try many different things like adding flash animations, video editing, sound editing, and not being too good in any of them.
