I began writing this post while on a plane to San Francisco for the Web 2.0 Expo. Lately I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the state of design, especially as it relates to interactive media and the web. We all know that when we create interactive designs, our primary goals should be ease of use and clear communication. Yet, in order to stand out in an increasingly homogeneous crowd, we need to be at least a bit concerned with brand and…well, style.
On style
A good design should transcend style; interactive designs in particular should be easy to use, clearly communicated and as timeless as possible. But there is also a need, a true business need, for companies to address their style and brand. And they often do - in all the wrong ways.
Much more frequently than I’m comfortable with, potential clients come to us asking for a “Web 2.0 design”. Marketing folks seem enamored with it. Developers are drawn to it. It has no doubt become the standard look of functional, usable design. But insisting on Web 2.0 as a style to design to can also be the worst choice a company could make for its brand right now. Even if it is pleasing to the eye when done well. A usable, clearly communicated web site or application is next to worthless if nobody can remember it or differentiate it from its competition.
I’m primarily talking about marketing here, not so much web applications and the like. Although, the case could be made that competing on features and ease of use alone might not be enough there either. Over the long term one would hope, and probably rightly so, that a superior product would supersede any up-front marketing effort. That users would choose on function and features and ease of use. However, in the short term, there is still a need to get people to even try what you’re selling. A solid, memorable brand can help quite a bit with that.
One of the primary laws of branding is differentiation. It used to be easy to differentiate yourself on the web by simply providing a site people could easily access and get what they needed. Still something you should be doing, but you need to do more now. With the advent and overwhelming acceptance of standards and best practices in the design and development communities and the amazing resiliency of the Web 2.0 look, it’s becoming harder and harder to do differentiate by simply being usable.
So how can you stand out in the crowd? One way is to use style; style in your copy, your look and feel, and your overall attitude. Start with standards, best practices, features and functionality—and then back them up with something a bit different.
I talked about this while working on the Blue Flavor redesign, but I think it helps explain how I feel about the proliferation of the Web 2.0 look, and how it can actually be detrimental from a branding standpoint.
Designing a point of view
Quite a few people have asked about the new design and the motives behind it. My main goal relates to the point I’m trying to make here: a good design should have a point of view. In this case a strong, hopefully unique point of view.
A unique point of view can be risky. It can be confusing, off-putting, and (if not executed well) even worse than just blending in and going with what seemingly works for everyone else. This is something I struggled with when doing the Blue Flavor redesign.
I think it’s gone well. For the most part my goal was to try something different, even if I had to sacrifice a bit on functionality and clear communication. This was a calculated risk. I looked at our clients and what our audiences wanted from our site, and decided it would probably be ok to go there.
I radically changed the look of our site, I decided to use commissioned posters to illustrate our work rather than simply show screenshots or samples up front. I removed the “Blue Flavor” from the logo. I went dark, taking the readability of the site down in a few areas, among other things.
Sounds a bit crazy, right? I guess it is, but the goal is to be memorable, and the feedback I’ve been getting suggests that strategy might be working. To be honest, far fewer people than I expected seem ‘put off’ by the new design. But time will tell. It’s not been all that long, and I could be wrong.
To mitigate some of those risks I simplified the content, not only on various pages, but throughout the site as a whole. I think the overall structure of the design is solid, and more timeless than the style may imply. As well, it’s designed to be flexible. I can change the style fairly easily, without changing the rest of the experience, thus keeping us from being tied to a particular look and feel. As well, if the poster idea goes by the wayside or bombs I can replace them with screenshots.
In addition to pointing out the risks we’ve taken, you could also argue that our execution could be better. I would accept that. I think I’m a much better creative director than I am a designer. I’ve got vision, can see and feel a strong design, and I feel like I’m very good at tying design direction to goals and problems. But I might be lacking a bit in visual technique. I’m working on it.
Having said that, it was pretty important to me that I do the new design of the site. I’m one of the owners and it’s partly my personality and vision that drive Blue Flavor. As well, I am the creative director and I do lead the creative direction here (though I don’t get to do as much design work as I’d like). I felt it was important to inject some of my style into our brand, but hopefully in such a way that it doesn’t take it over.
I feel we’ve established a pretty strong brand for a company our size. Although I’m confident that our brand is stands out visually, most of our branding isn’t visual by nature. Instead, our it’s built on personality, on the minds and hands of our people, and on our presence in the community. It’s built on the relationships we’ve got with our clients and the passion we put behind our work.
We’re trying to be different while reflecting our personality in our brand. I think we’ve done that. Time will tell if it works, but having a strong, unique point of view—especially amidst all that’s Web 2.0—was important to me and something I’d encourage our clients and the rest of the design community to explore.
I think I’d rather have some people hate it and remember it than “like” it and forget it.
The Bottom-line
If I were to leave you with one thing here, it’s this: While standards, best practices, and good, usable design are things you should shoot for as a baseline goal for your web site, mobile site or application, you should be trying to do more. Those things are good for your brand, but without a unique and differentiating point of view they might never get noticed.
Don’t be afraid to throw away the trappings of Web 2.0, at least as they relate to style, in favor of something unique and challenging. Even if you have to take a risk or two along the way.
Great article. I am often surprised by the clients that are willing to throw their existing brand out the window for their new website. Certainly different mediums call for different approaches and a site should be treated differently than, say, a print brochure, but a company’s brand shouldn’t be the afterthought - it should be the foundation of the design.
When the designer asks navigation, layout, or usability questions he/she should come back to: “How does the company’s brand influence those decisions?” and then apply web standards and best practices to the design within the context of the brand. Not the other way around.
@Grant: Exactly. The brand should be the reason why you decide to use certain ‘Web 2.0’ features. Using these types of things just for the sake of using them is pointless, and will most likely only hurt you in the end.
I also have a much broader perception of the difference between ‘Web 1.0’ and ‘Web 2.0’. 1.0 was commerce-centric, and 2.0 is people-centric.
I wonder how many companies out there decided on their name solely because it sounded ‘Web 2.0ish’. For instance, taking a name that ends in ‘er’ and dropping the ‘e’. Seems like after Flickr, there have been a million companies that have done this.
Anyway, sorry if I got slightly off-topic there…great post!
I think the “web 2.0” design is a result of a great transition back to fundamentals. Much of these websites seem to be leading with large, easy to read text, and make the utility of the site immediately apparent for all audiences. Although the bubbli-ness may be trending I think the idea of in your face simplicity is timeless.
omg.. good work, brother
I have been saying this for a long time now, and I am glad other (and prominent) design professionals see it as well. So many companies want to “fit in” that they forget that being different is good as well.
The whole thing reminds me of high school. Everyone wants to be cool so they throw away their values and the things that make them different. Where is Molly Ringwald, she could be teaching lessons on branding in the web 2.0 world lol!