Creative Spark #4

The Difference Between Design and Art

Good web design is far more than a beautiful site, it’s where art meets an interactive user interface and where, in my opinion, superfluous aesthetics takes a backseat to usability and the user experience.
Ensuring that user interactions are as smooth as possible is good design — don’t ever be satisfied with art alone.


Although the design vs. art debate is nothing new, it’s ripe for a revisiting as new CSS3 features and JavaScript (and particularly front-end web development libraries like jQuery) begin to edge their way deeper into our everyday lives.These new capabilities, however revolutionary they may seem, have changed nothing about how we should approach web design in general.

 

Where Design and Art Clash

Art is a problematically inclusive term; anything in the world can be called "art." The main difference between art and design, then, is that design is simply more restrained. Any artist can look at their work and see it as an extension of themselves, but designers don’t have that liberty. As designers, our work has to be interactive, accessible and consistent. In this way, art goes beyond design because no one would expect someone to say that all art has to be consistent and follow a pattern. That would be absurd! What if cubists set the rules? Our art museums would be terribly dull and without variation.

Examples of Cubism, a 20th century art movement. Above: (01) Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and (02) Le guitariste by Pablo Picasso.
This is what design is: It’s art with expectations, patterns and consistency. It’s art meeting science.
Yes, it’s limiting, and yes, UI designers have to be trained to think inside the box a little. But get over it. You are a designer, not an artist. If you want complete freedom and no friction between your creativity and your work, you are working in the wrong field. Artists can work to their whim, eschewing standards and refuting expectations, whereas designers gobble them up and abide by their every word. Market forces and trends influence designers far more than artists (with some notable exceptions like pop singers and freelance illustrators). With web design, there are so many more things to take account of: your site goals, your brand, your users. These expectations shape every bit of web design, while art remains untouched.

 

Design and Aesthetics

Another important distinction to make is the difference between design and pure aesthetics. While all design incorporates aesthetic — and truly, everything in the world has some form of aesthetic — some designs do it better than others.

Creative Spark #3

TYPE!

A skillfully chosen typeface demands attention. It can instruct, inform…even inspire. The TYPE! exhibit  in Gallery 1820 at The Art Institute of Washington examines the many faces of type. Featured student and faculty work includes experimental typography as well as print and digital projects.

The exhibit runs through Friday, September 23.

Please join us for a gallery reception open to the public on Thursday, September 8 from 4:30 – 7:30 pm.*

Creative Spark #2 - Cool Homepages for Web Designers

Creative Spark #2

If you are looking for cool Web Design Ideas. Take a look at Cool Homepages.com
This is the place where designers place their best work. You can also rate the designs you like the
best. So the next time you need to be inspired check out Cool Homepages.com http://www.coolhomepages.com/

Creative Spark #1 - Iconic Logo Designers

Creative Spark #1 - Iconic Logo Designers

Take a look at some of the most well known logo in the world.
http://www.logosdesigners.com/

One of my favorite designers is Mr. Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli

Massimo Vignelli, born in Milan, studied architecture in Milan and Venice. He came to the United States from 1957 to 1960 on fellowships from Towle Silversmiths in Massachusetts and the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. In 1960, with Lella Vignelli, he established the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan.
In 1965, Massimo Vignelli became co-founder and design director of Unimark International Corporation. With Lella Vignelli, he established the offices of Vignelli Associates in 1971, and Vignelli Designs in 1978. His work includes graphic and corporate identity programs, publication designs, architectural graphics, and exhibition, interior, furniture, and consumer product designs for many leading American and European companies and institutions. Mr. Vignelli has had his work published and exhibited throughout the world and entered in the permanent collections of several museums; notably, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York; the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal; and the Die Neue Sammlung in Munich.
Mr. Vignelli has taught and lectured on design in the major cities and universities in the United States and abroad. He is a past president of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGl) and the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AlGA), a vice president of the Architectural League, and a member of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA).
Two feature-length television programs on the Vignellis’ work have been aired worldwide. A monographic exhibition of the Vignellis’ work toured Europe between 1989 and 1993, and was featured in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Helsinki, London, Budapest, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Munich, Prague and Paris

How to Create a Clean Web 2.0 Style Web Design in Photoshop

In this Photoshop web design tutorial, you’ll learn, step-by-step, how to create a stunning and clean web layout. You’ll be using some basic to intermediate-level techniques to build your very own sleek "Web 2.0" style web design that uses the 960 Grid System.

This is a two-part series that will teach you how to create the layout in Photoshop, and then how to convert it to a standards-compliant (X)HTML web design.