Summary:
In times of trouble the first thing crossed out the grocery list is... candy, sweets. You need to stick to a strict budget, so you keep to the bare necessities. That’s it, no extra permitted until better times come around.
:: Eye candy* it's role in communication design
Bland food = no appetite. Who wants porridge-like design anyway?
In times of trouble the first thing crossed out the grocery list is… candy, sweets. You need to stick to a strict budget, so you keep to the bare necessities. That’s it, no extra permitted until better times come around.
Similar to a trend companies tend to apply to their web design projects of late?
After a mostly self-inflicted catastrophe – aka dotbombing – it seems the direction to take is to pare down to the strict necessities. Paring down websites to a mere bland space and kicking out creative visual *stuff* equals crossing out the *sweets* from the budget list… Visual support is often perceived as *fluff*. Go figure.
This maniacal micro-management of webdev budgets is another (alas) indication of how poorly understood this new media is. The media is 100% a visual environment aka appealing first and mostly to the eyes. Thus said…
Real and media world: traditional medias *command* healthy chunks of creative investment because the per se *visual* qualities are… well… understood; you know TV, billboards, ads. If you were to put an ad in a magazine using regular black text on a white background – it would be mistaken for a content page. All designers AND clients know this – it goes with the… territory/media.
So what is it that prevents new media design being understood as a *visual* media? Maybe what is mainly mediatized is the technological aspect? The hype is on programming, the code, the validating css, the information architecture, the accessibility, the progressive layout that will look ok in all browsers, the w3c standards, the forms, the e-commerce applications, the data-base applications, the… etc… You get the point. Backend is an inseparable part of the frontend. Bottom line – your audience sees only the frontend, that is, what appears on their screen. To the user – you know – the ultimate person who punches in the url – what really matters, is the how it looks and many research done recently agrees on this. Even a badly programmed site will be perceived as a good site if it *looks* good.
Clients succumb to the pressure of budget but designers should NOT in the long run. It’s the quality of your work that survives the budget (or the lack thereof). The audience won’t appraise a site by saying: “oh, this is a such$ and such$ budget site” but most likely “oh, this is a really good site” or “what a bad looking site!”
Eye candy = proficience in visual vocabulary
Media presence gives a sense of place. Liken it to a trip you take. It was carefully planned but yet, upon arriving, you realize that your *accommodation* is a shambled room overlooking the garbage containers. The destination may be exotic and culturally enticing but, the only thing you see (smell?) is how your room looks like.
Back home, the after taste lingering, is bitterness… a sense of having been had. It certainly can generate the most violent aversion for the destination. One, that can overshadow everything… no matter how the beach was perfect (after walking a couple of blocks) or the food delicious… You are vouching never going back and become a dissuasive agent for anyone contemplating the same destination because… what if they get the same accommodation?!
Online there is no room for *what if*? A bad visual experience produces the same end-results as a bad trip.
Beauty is not fashion nor style nor being trendy. Fashionable for a moment, forgotten the next. Stylish for a moment, forgotten the next. Trendy for a moment… Eye candy is a peak experience that will be renewed over and over and over in a timeless manner. This is what a targeted audience knows and expects. This is what they think is IT: the ultimate experience!
Beauty or sense of aesthetic is a deep human longing and constant activity / occupation throughout our lives. Be we be rich or poor. Beauty produces a positive effect. It alleviates the pressures of survival. It elevates the soul. I am not referring to luxurious settings or to carnal appeal of the senses. I am referring to simple beauty. Simplicity is beautiful when set up in the right context.
For example: if you use a *flower* picture on a content management software site make sure that the flower conveys, adds meaning to the context or else it can achieve the opposite expectation.
Or if you use some abstract design for a human resource site make sure it meets the needs of your audience; you would not want to convey that you don’t know where you are going.
Beautiful design conveys understanding. “Design will flourish as a discipline only insofar as it is understood that the computing medium alters the process of design, not its purpose. Purpose has to do with vision; design is an act that determines the expression of that vision, and even the extent to which it is expressed at all.”4
Beauty is not achieved by money or big / small sums of money. What do you prefer? Working in a dirty run-down environment or a clean and stimulating one? Think again, if you are tempted to say it does not matter. Check the footnote.5
By sheer necessity you might need to go to ugly places, but an indication of the deep set need (mode) – remember how you feel when you see something beautiful? Relief, an immense sense of relief, as if escaping some invisible cave or cage which was hiding the light of day.
Visual aesthetics are powerful. Very.
Perception + impression = memorable experience. Telling a story is *design* most powerful underlying process.
Ego-construct – brand personality and why it won’t work
Beauty breaks the linear trend of uniformity. Everybody is so given to the norm of day – uniformity. It is a great opportune time to stand out in the Land of Bland.
The advocates of blending / blanding solutions aka the Be All to All to get All overlook the ever expanding globalized (culture) network and media process. In fact, they are moments away from hitting the wall full force.
Beware of this request: “Make *me_company* just enough different for I need to be recognized as part of the big (and false) corporate blend / bland mix.” Now why would a company invest time, efforts and money to… huh… have no impact?
Talk to any manager. Ask him what he expects from spending time, efforts and money. The first expectation will be: increased whatever (profits, market share, awareness). The second will be: results (tangible). The third will be: lasting… longevity… VALUE! (Isn't it the true basis upon which to build any future)?
Ask him if time, efforts and money = nothing. Or waste? Or futility? Or ephemeral? Watch their face has a scandalized frown washes over them, and how they start looking at you as if you were some kind of lunatic. And think to himself: “YOU don’t know what business is about?” – “Do you have any idea how much and how long it took to get here?”
Now, when proposed the rightly suitable visual communication for their web presence go figure why all of a sudden they become the enemy of the solution? Why all of a sudden they become unstable and crash as soon as you try to boot in a new outside (competitive?) idea similar to some known software. Why? Because, it’s going to cost efforts, time and money. Exact same components that built their company. Go figure.
The reason is simple. They don’t see *eye candy* as a good business investment. In fact, more often than not, they see the offering as a direct threat to their next year capacity to renew / negotiate their department budget. An even deeper *why* to the exclusion of eye candy as a viable, sane, sound, intelligent business decision, is seemingly the lack of proof of success.
Most companies tend to see the big successful brands as something completely out of their league / reach. Read: completely out of the scope of their budget. They plainly suffer from the *inferiority budget* syndrome. In their mind, that kind of success costs loads of money.
So it is your job to convince them otherwise. I have observed this first hand with many projects / clients. Those who accepted the creative challenge of reinventing through a well thought out communication strategy which included their web site design / presence, met their objectives, some even increased their sales and all, increased their reputation as a serious company in the eyes of their audience. The others who have waged war against such / are at the same place I left them still entangled in the web of status quo.
For the mass media age = eye candy / aesthetic represents value. Use it well and educate your clients accordingly.
Bibliography:
1 LosLogos by R. Klanten, M. Mischler, N. Bourquin – Berlin : Die-Gestalten-Verl / 2002
2 Eye:catcher – The New Penguin English Dictionary / 2000
4 Designing Business by Clement Mok, Adobe Press, USA / 1996
5 The Power of Place: How our surroundings shape our thoughts, emotions and actions by Winifred Gallagher, Harper Collins, USA / 1993
Originally published in Creative Behavior Magazine - March 2003