by Kyle Meyer

There are merely the illusion of trends. A trend is a term for whatever the stylists are copying en masse at the time. What are stylists? Stylists are people who are technically proficient with the tools of the trade to create design, but lack knowledge of the design process. Rather than applying the process they simply find something they find cool at the time and reproduce a spin-off of it.

When you create something along the lines of the Web 2.0 look, or a hand drawn look for example, you are assigning attributes to whatever the content happens to be that may or may not be appropriate. Design communicates a visual message to a viewer, and when you communicate the wrong thing, you are failing your client.

In fact, this type of ‘design’ devalues real design. Just look across the blogosphere, look at the bountiful amount of Web 2.0 style sites for companies which have no qualities that fit the stigma that comes with Web 2.0; it just looks pretty. Look at the dozens of illustrative, organic feeling designs that have popped up recently. Someone told me that super-sized text is a new trend (when the size of type is considered a trend, may the Swiss have mercy on our souls).

To put it in one sentence, I really love Wikipedia’s definition of design: Designing normally requires a designer to consider the aesthetic, functional, and many other aspects of an object or a process, which usually requires considerable research, thought, modeling, interactive adjustment, and re-design.

Visit Click to Open Web Page to read more.

KYLE MEYER
User Experience Designer

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