The qualities of good design
The discipline of design is one that transcends individual fields. In the context of this blog, you might be thinking of design in terms of software engineering, or in Web site design and layout, but take a step back for a minute and think about the overarching features that always manifest themselves in good design.
I blame the typeface
My interest in design was sparked from the documentary Helvetica, directed by Gary Hustwit 1. This film taught me that design knows no bounds. A good designer should be able to design anything: a typeface, a sports car, a building, or an album cover. No matter the creative challenge, the same basic design principles hold true.
In Helvetica, renowned designer Massimo Vignelli expresses this idea well.
“The life of a designer is a life of fighting—fight against the ugliness, just like a doctor fights against disease. For us visual disease is what we have around and what we try to do is try to cure it somehow, you know, with design.”
You’ve got to love this guy.
Anyway, I have compiled a list of properties that I believe must be present in every well-designed thing. Whether in Web and graphic design, industrial design, architecture, or even engineering and software development—all these traits apply.
These qualities are as follows, in no particular order:
- Good design is timeless
- Good design is unmistakable
- Good design represents the culmination of one line of reasoning
- Good design gratifies the senses and the mind
- Good design is often imitated, yet never supplanted
Let’s examine them one at a time. You know, so your head doesn’t explode.
Good design is timeless
The best designs have lasting appeal, because the notion of a good design does not change with time. That is not to say that such a design cannot be a product of its own time. While a given design might be born out of some wacky, fleeting art or social trend, a truly strong design never goes out of style.
The Parthenon suddenly comes to mind, in a way that makes me think I have been planning this essay for far too long. The Parthenon was constructed around the proportions of the golden ratio under the premise that it was the most visually-pleasing aspect ratio. How can you go wrong with a design guideline like that? Timelessness is the reason its style has been mimicked in the façades of countless buildings over the centuries.
It has been 2,500 years since The Parthenon was built, and it still stands as an icon of the Golden Age of architecture and philosophy. It has withstood the test of time, both physically and ideologically.
Every designer should be so lucky to work on a such a project.
Good design is unmistakable
Good design will never, ever be confused with a lesser design.
After wallowing in the mires of poorly-planned objects and user interfaces, people develop a sixth sense that alerts them when they are introduced to a better user experience. This has happened to you before; you know how this feels. You can feel things click into place, so to speak. Everything about an object’s design suddenly makes a little more sense. If you don’t have keen senses, you might not be able to pinpoint why, exactly, you feel this way. No matter; the good designer has already left his mark.
To clarify, just because a design is unique does not mean it must be memorable. In fact, some designs are best left to blend into the background. Helvetica is arguably the world’s most ubiquitous typeface, yet most people go about their lives without ever realizing it. Helvetica is simply an irreplaceable specimen whose grace and utility is surpassed by none. This is due to its ability to permeate many facets of culture yet remain emotionally neutral.
Good design represents the culmination of one line of reasoning
I have to admit that this idea came almost verbatim from Helvetica. I thought it was so eloquently phrased that it had to be included. Type designer Jonathan Hoefler explains the appeal of Helvetica:
There’s something about it that does have the feeling of finality to it. This was the conclusion of one line of reasoning […] and perhaps everything after it is secondary in some way.
Arial, I’m looking at you.
Alternatively, this rule might read “Good design does not happen by accident”.
Good design gratifies the senses and the mind
So far, nothing has been said about the beauty of a well-designed object. Every design has an interface to the outside world, and if that interface is not pleasurable to the user, then the design has failed to fulfill its responsibilities.
Notice that I am dancing around the concept of beauty, because it has implications involving just one sense: sight. A good design satisfies the user on every level of interaction.
Imagine you’re using ideal laptop2 computer. It looks cool; really cool. It’s so shiny and attractive that everyone else in the coffee shop envies it. But the ideal laptop does not stop there. It is unbelievably light, yet sturdy enough that it can be tossed into a backpack with some books. It has a bright screen and a tactile keyboard. It runs quickly and responds instantly to every command.
I think you get the idea by now. Good design is never sloppy in its aesthetics. It also stimulates the senses and keeps the mind alert.
That is, until you spill your latte all over the keyboard.
Good design is often imitated, yet never supplanted
It’s okay—I had to look up the meaning of supplant, too. I will reproduce it here, courtesy of the Oxford English Dictionary.
verb [ trans. ]
supersede and replace : the socialist society that Marx believed would eventually supplant capitalism.
In the same way that a musical artist measures their success by the number of songs turned into Weird Al parodies, a great design also has many imitators. A design might be copied by a third party to achieve the feeling of the original design, or it might be adapted to solve a problem in an entirely new field. A design might even be literally parodied to highlight the stereotypical traits of the design and the people who associate with it.
Observe the search engine Cuil (pronounced “cool”). At its launch, Cuil heralded itself as the “Google killer”. While it appears to have the same simple search interface, Cuil lacks some important features of Google. It does not utilize Google’s beautifully-simple PageRank algorithm that is based upon the structure of the Web itself, nor are its search results listed in a single column of text that scales well to smaller displays and mobile devices. Cuil merely made itself look uncool in the face of the an Internet megastar who seems to have gotten search “right”.
Conclusion
It all sounds like a lot of high-level, ambiguous gibberish—and that’s because it is. I’m hoping you can walk away from this essay with an appreciation for the thought and work that goes into making any design successful.
More importantly, I hope that you refer to these rules the next time you embark on a creative endeavor. We can all make the world a little more beautiful with some good design of our own.
It’s just what the doctor ordered.
Relevant links
Footnotes
1 I am eagerly awaiting Gary’s newest film, Objectified, which delves into industrial design and the manufacture of everyday objects. Expect some more Hustwit-inspired material following its release.
2 Notebook, shmotebook. Am I the only one who still calls them laptops?
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