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Taglist for "Design Environment"

Content-Driven Design – Let’s Throw out Tradition
Feb 2, 2010

First off, I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to all the emails and Twitter messages I’ve received over the impending redesign of Tripping Words; it is going slowly but steadily. The new website design will pay closer heed (albeit with a hint of measured defiance!) to proven aesthetic principles and more importantly it will feature a more robust content-driven interface. 

 

Redesigning Personal Projects – A Critical Analysis
Jan 21, 2010

We’ve all experienced the occasional (and sometimes rather persistent) itch to redesign and rebrand our existing portfolios or blog homepages. As designers, it has become part of an instinctual response to search for new ways to reconceptualise our online presence and identity for an ever evolving audience with rising expectations. Redesigning is very much like an anticipated sugar rush; it engulfs your mind with positive ambition, drive and inspiration (serves as a nice pick-me-up) but it can also be the source of many impending headaches. This article explores the 3 noteworthy dilemmas involved in redesigning a personal project and how to overcome them.

The Concept of “Intelligent Design” – Form vs. Function
Jan 16, 2010

Intelligent design is the philosophical assertion that all design options and choices (for example, the colour of your chair, the positioning of your coffee mug handle) are supported by clear reason (function); there is a concrete scientific rationale behind design and there is no instance whereby design spontaneously ‘occurs’ without prior methodical planning and regard for function. Whilst most arguments on intelligent design are often employed to explain how the universe is formed and structured (which inevitably concerns topics such as evolution and theology), the theory can also be applied specifically to the web design field. For the sake of clarity, I shall now provide two hypothetical examples to explain intelligent design from a philosophically oriented perspective.

The Death of Originality in Design- Coming to Terms
Jan 12, 2010

Originality in the creative world is dead. If originality were a person, its obituary would have been extensively written and re-written several decades ago together with a whole series of memoirs, well before the advent of the Internet. Its demise however has not been readily acknowledged by the design community and till date, several designers are still claiming to have found “originality” in their creative endeavours. Truth be told, I am often left quietly bemused when I chance upon design portfolios emblazoned with opportunistic slogans such as these: “We make wholly original and creative websites”. Are they staging a dramatic (and historic) resurrection of an age-old concept? I think not.

 

 

Designing an Idea - How to Beautify your Inspiration
Jan 7, 2010

Designing a website is, as most designers would already know, a methodical process which typically requisites a fair amount of creativity, knowledge on aesthetic principles and a decent handling of code/mark-up. (primarily CSS). These steps are acquired thorough consistent practice and experimentation. But what about the creative ideas behind these designs, how can they be evolved, and transformed into effective starting points of an overall website design? This article explores how exactly designers can “design an idea”, before integrating that very same idea into the structured paradigm of a new web project.

The Risk of Being Unique – The Logic of Design Styles
Jan 3, 2010

Every designer has a signature style interwoven into the fabric his/her work – it can be an intentional feature of a design project but it can also be suppressed in the case of commercially driven corporate work, where functionality and purpose supersedes personalised creativity. Uniqueness is a facet of aesthetic style, but it involves the courage to be creatively different from standardized design conventions. Is there a risk in being unique in an industry/community which embraces creative ambition but also prefers to preserve certain aesthetic traditions?

 

 

Designing Beautiful User-Experiences for the Web
Dec 23, 2009

User Experience (UX) design is traditionally categorised under the broader paradigm of web usability. It pertains to the building of architecture and interaction models that influence a user’s experience with and perception of websites. This article however, will not serve as an ordinary how-to guide on web usability tests/analysis, but rather, it aims to introduce a different perspective to user-experience studies – the meta-narrative. 

What is Design? A Thorough Analysis of Definitions
Dec 18, 2009

“Design” and “Designer” – are words that are often used rather liberally to refer to the profession or craft of “making functional and perceivably attractive things”. Design in its contemporary linguistic usage bears an almost absolute resonance with “beautiful aesthetics”; a connection, which is understandable but inherently myopic. Design is creativity and beauty but also much more.

A Guide to Writing Killer Content for Your Design Blog
Dec 14, 2009

Over the past couple of months, I’ve spent most of my time trudging through several design-related articles in my RSS reader, in an effort to better understand the finer workings behind writing compelling web content. The central purpose of my inquiry revolved around the following question; what makes an effective/engaging editorial in the design industry? If you are an editor of a design blog, then you would be fairly familiar with the rigorous demands involved in churning quality, thought-provoking articles on a daily or fortnightly basis. The truth of the matter is that many blog writers have resorted to rehashing arguments and topics that have already been exhaustively discussed before. The tendency is there, amongst bloggers, to reproduce (or paraphrase) the main ideas contained in various other design articles and compile it into a single ‘new’ piece.

Transform Creative Ideas into Stunning Designs
Dec 10, 2009

There are at present a multitude of websites showcasing a delectable array of inspirational material, (more aptly termed as ‘showcases’ or ‘lists’) within the realms of the design fraternity. While these trusted repositories of wonderful resources are an indispensible part of the creative process (one would be “inspirationally naked” without them!), designers need to understand how to translate “clipboard” ideas into compelling visual masterpieces. Turning great ideas into an even greater design requires an understanding of creative ideas and how to harness them effectively. In this article I develop a guideline on transforming design-related conceptual ideas into a well furnished design product.