I heard something yesterday that I just can’t buy into.
Ok, caveat – I heard a LOT of things yesterday that I have trouble buying into, but this one is the only one that’s interesting and challenges my way of thinking (the other one seems just plain stupid and whilst it may have had some good points, the way it was delivered and “sold” just alienated me and made me feel like I was being told off by a grumpy school teacher).
A presentation was given on the topic of Graphic Design and how it’s actually a solid “Web Standard” with which we can create online experiences for users that will work for all.
This in itself is controversial, as when we often talk about web standard we’re obviously talking about a technical aspect of some kind, such as the way to code HTML or CSS etc., but this isn’t the part I am picking up on – in fact, I can see the point that’s being made here (I think).
During the same presentation, however, a lot of comparison was made between the digital design process and the print design process, and how that digital designers can learn from the history, previous and current work being done in the print world – and this is again true – there is some great print work out there and some amazing print designers from the past and working today.
But for me, the comparison went a little too far at times.
It almost seemed to me that in some way’s we were being told that desiging from a digital perspective alone, and treating it as a new medium, with which there are new rules, isn’t good enough, and that unless you truly work with digital in a direct relation to what is and has happened in the print world, you’re missing a trick.
At times, we were even told that as a good way to check if your digital designs are working, you could take them, print them out in a physical format, and see if it works as a printed piece, to check if it’s working as a digital one.
erm….
I’m sorry? But, why?
What possible good could this do you? aside from reassuring you as a designer that you’ve managed to create a good looking digital design that happens to print out well therefore rendering it almost useless as a piece of solid digital design: catch-22.
I think I know what the problem is with this thinking.
Art.
Design in this context is being judged as art, as an expression of visual design devoid of meaning or purpose or a role in what it’s trying to do.
It’s design in the print context where once it’s put down on the page, or the screen, and then sent to the printers, the involvement by the end user, as well as the people creating it, ends – the job of the designer is the be-all and end-all, and all anyone else does is either bring it to life by activating a machine, or passively consume it.
Digital design is different.
For a start, the designer doesn’t visualise the end product. they may think they do, and they may work side-by-side other people like IAs and developers as part of a creative team, but they don’t control the end product in anything like the same way a print designer does. It’s more like the relationship a director has with a good editior – the director has the vision, but it’s the editor who crafts the end result from what is effectively raw materials (can you tell I wanted to be an editor whilst I was studying my degree?)
Because of this interconnected relationship a visual creative has with the other creatives on a digital team (the “interface” creative – or IA, or the “technical” creative – or coder, for example), they can’t produce a single piece of art which they then pass on.
Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the end user, the consumer in my world, of a piece of design (a website for example) does not passively consume the work – they interact with it, normally, it’s designed to move, to take input, to show video, to play games, to be interactive by it’s very nature. Print is not.
Printing out your web pages to see how they look is for me a truly amateur thing to say – I don’t know any serious digital creative who would do such a thing (I know plenty of account handlers who do it on a regular basis to present to clients but let’s not go there!).
You’re not even working in a good DPI for print are you? 72 dpi on the page? come on – i don’t have to explain this one.
I suspect, hope, that the comment was a mistake, that he made it off-the-cuff in mid-flow during a presenstation – and like i say a presenation which was pretty good to look at (if very printy).
Designing for the digital environment is something that exists in it’s own right. It’s a medium (well, a collection of mediums) which are so intrinsically different to anything that has come before it that you need to treat it as it’s own beast.
Having said that, can we learn from print? From TV? From Radio? From Games? of course we can – we’re multi-media – we can take any of these other design environments and learn from that they’ve been doing in them for a lot longer than we have with pixels and flash – take as much as you want and create something beautiful with it – but don’t confuse the mediums.
Don’t think that you need to prove yourself n a job-by-job basis in the print world in order to rule the digital one.
They’re different things with very different ways of executing for both the consumer and the creator, and whilst they do cross over, and have similarities, they really aren’t the same.
Learn from them.
Don’t wish you were working in them if you’re not.
ps – I still don’t get CMYK for colours. How can there be FOUR? 4 colour ffs. there’s only three! RGB. and why isn’t it CMYB?
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