Design is often thought as a creative process, and yes whilst being creative helps to be good at design what I mean by this is that design is often thought of as the ‘drawing’, ‘sketching’, ‘painting’ elements of a project; the creation of the aesthetic elements of a new product, or in my case, a new website.
Whilst the aesthetics are, of course, important to any project and to ensuring that any business is portrayed in a way that they want the outside world to view them; design isn’t just about the layout and images used within any given project.
One of my favourite quotes is from Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple, and he says this:
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”
– Steve Jobs
Design isn’t just about what something looks like or how it makes you feel. These things are important, but design is also about how something works. For example, when someone clicks onto the homepage of your website what do you want them to do next? Are there multiple different things you might want them to do depending on what they are looking for or is there a single goal you have in mind?
And what about once they’ve done that? What do you want them to do next? And after that, and after that, and so on. Designing a website is about so much more than just the aesthetics; it’s about what you need a website to achieve for your business. What are your business’ goals, it’s aims? Does your website align with these goals and aims to help you achieve them? If not… why not?
If someone can’t make something ‘look pretty’ then they shouldn’t be a designer. But what people often don’t think about is that if someone cannot create with purpose then, in my opinion, they also shouldn’t be a designer. Next time you go to design something, anything; just make sure you’re thinking about its purpose as much as its appearance.
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