Design, the web, and craft.
I’ve been watching Project Runway. There, I’ve said it - and yes, I enjoy it.
Mark Boulton recently posted his thoughts on web designers needing to know HTML. With his post swirling around in my head the other night while watching the afore mentioned reality TV show I had an interesting thought. I’ll break it down into a couple main points before elaborating:
- Crafting something is different than “production”
- What is the craft of web design?
- How do web designers “make”
So.. let’s get into each one of those a little bit.
One thing that really struck me about the designers on Project Runway is that they are judged on their concept, creativity, and execution. They have to make something, they are required to know how to work with the materials of their medium. Are they required to mass produce or make clothes that are ready to wear and sell? No.
As a web designer the equivalent would be knowing enough HTML, CSS, JS, (etc) to create a version of your idea, something good enough to convey your creative vision and be constructed fairly well. Does it have to be ready to launch for a million people? Absolutely not. There are experts in construction on the web, just as there are in fashion or manufacturing.
The same could be said for other types of design. Industrial designers need to know enough about working with their physical materials to bring their designs to life. Once it’s ready for commercial production it goes to somebody else, maybe a manufacturing company or an engineer.
Mark makes a comparison to people who do graphic and motion design for TV. He claims that they don’t have to worry about the fundamentals of television production. I would say they absolutely do! They won’t be the ones putting the final piece together for broadcast, usually that takes a whole team. However, the designer needs to understand how that production works, what the final product will look like on the viewers TV, and how it all comes together. I would also argue that television is by and large not a medium of designers. There are designers who work as part of production teams to work on costumes, sets, graphics, captions, and the list goes on, but the final broadcast product is a product of directors and producers bringing all these aspects together. Radio, his other example, works in a similar way.
A more fair comparison would be other design disciplines. Industrial design, fashion, graphic/print design… in all these the designer needs to work with the final medium to fully realize their design. Why should the web be any different?
That being said, most designers reach a point in their career where they no longer produce much. They become directors, guides, idea generators, strategic thinkers… I firmly believe getting to that point in any design discipline requires years spent in the trenches, making and thinking tactically. How can a fashion designer dictate what material to use if they have never worked with that material themselves? Only after years of making clothes and working with many materials and techniques would a designer be ready to stop working directly with the fabric, and instead design for it and get others to actually do the making. At that point they have a deep and ingrained understanding of how their materials work. I’d say that we’re getting to that point with the web now, where some of the very experienced designers are moving beyond the need to “make”… but we’re just getting there.
This is also something we’ve been struggling with in the interaction design community. How do we give form to our designs? I’m not sure there’s a good answer yet, but we can learn a lot from our neighbouring design disciplines.
So.. to bring this all back together. As a designer there is a continuum you travel over the course of your career. It starts with making - crafting objects in your selected medium - and progresses through a point where you internalize your craft and can design without making. Even at that point, most designers continue to make things. It helps solidify design choices, and keeps you in touch with changes in the medium. Career wise, at this point you might be an art director, creative director, or design director… Before that point it is imperative that designers engage with their medium and craft - wether it be websites, clothes, telephones, chairs, or responsive environments.
What do you think?
Quick Update:
After getting some comments on twitter, I’d like to clarify a few things about my current point of view.
Right now, I think this applies mostly to people who specialize in designing for the web. If you’re a designer working on software or other complex products/systems your ability to work in the final medium may be limited. That’s ok. That’s where things like robust prototyping tools come into play. As long as the prototype is in a similar enough medium to the final product, it will serve the same purpose. If it respects the limitations and possibilities of the final materials then the designer can use it to understand how the final product will look, feel, behave, etc.
I’m interested in talking about how these more traditional design practices and learning paths apply to our new-ish world of web, software, and complex devices/services/interactions/etc..
Also, these are ideas in progress and largely written stream of consciousness. I’d love to talk about this with people who agree, disagree, like bananas, etc. Please post thoughts and questions in the comments!
