Design vs. Decoration

It seems everyone knows a “designer” these days. You probably know an interior decorator who became an interior designer. This has some merit, since interior design evolved from interior decoration. However, I’m sure nobody ever handed you a business card describing himself/herself as a Web decorator. Browse around the Web and you’ll notice the work of a number of Web decorators who perhaps should have.

When it’s time to refresh your company’s website, you select and invite talented people to make recommendations and bid for the job. Some designers imagine your website as a physical space with aging carpet, peeling paint, and dated fixtures. Their process would be as follows:

• They listen to you speak about areas and features before going away to plan.
• They return proudly with gorgeous mood boards showing your new website in high style.

These mood boards show the same areas and features, now with sleek new fixtures and gorgeous flooring, backed by a few carefully selected paint chips.

Other designers do all of this and also revise your brand in the process. Now the mood boards look even better, and your new corporate colours are jaw-dropping. In the words of typographer Robert Bringhurst, both groups of designers “took your fancy ideas out of the crummy containers they were trapped in.” But, what if the problem isn’t the container?

Design refers as much to the construction of what is being designed as it does to the plan for constructing it. If what I referred to above sounds like your company and website, then I hope a third designer comes in with the following approach:

• Ignores the space and website as it currently stands
• Ignores the containers your ideas are in
• Focuses only on the ideas themselves

To get the best out of a new design, your designer should be centering the discussion on your people, the work they do, and the clients they do it for. What ideally happens here? Why is this website needed? After many questions, a plan develops. The best design results from taking steps that include research, brainstorming, design, development, and user testing. After all, the product can only be as good as the process.

A solid process yields solid results. You might pay more for such a process, but the resulting product will be targeted at your business and its goals, and that’s worth more in the long run.