David Emery Online

Web Design

4 May 2009

There’s something that’s been playing on my mind recently: what role does the internet (and, more specifically websites) play in the traditional world of graphic design?

This was further sparked by the recent D&AD nominations and the publication of the Creative Review annual which highlights and celebrates exceptional design and visual communication work from the last year; both cover similar ground and feature a lot of the same pieces. CR even go so far to entitle their forward to the issue ‘Digital delivers…’, highlighting what they perceive to be a shift towards digital work taking more precedence over the traditional areas of print, film and the like.

But does ‘digital’ really deliver?

I certainly don’t think that the work they’re highlighting does. It’s a veritable who’s who of tasteless, agency produced flash abominations including the Orange Ballonacy (which I spent 10mins looking at when it launched trying to figure out what the hell was going on) and the Carphone Warehouse ‘make an avatar and sing badly’ site for X-Factor, which was only interesting due to the size of the audience it was going out to. Do these kind of things really warrant highlighting? In the case of the Orange ads, the companion TV spots – while not being stunning themselves – were miles ahead of the online version in terms of style, subtly and plain artistry.

It says a lot to me that if you look at the D&AD nominations that the web based entries are mostly either categorised under ‘digital’ – which means what, exactly? – or ‘microsite’ which means even less (pop quiz: how many pages does it take for a microsite to become just a ‘site’?).

It’s not to say though that their isn’t work on the internet that deserves representation, though but I do get the feeling that as a medium the web is only just beginning to find its design feet – witness the recent rise in interest in grid layout systems, for example. The tricky part comes of course in pinning down exactly what you’re judging on, which is so much trickier for the web then more traditional media. Are you simply looking for something that looks nice? Or something that looks nice and provides a good user experience at the same time (see ya, flash portfolio sites!). Or how about something that is more about the idea then completely about the execution (which I would imagine is close to what the aforementioned judges were trying for).

Personally I would like better representation for the one in the middle – amazing design, but useable amazing design. The web has great ideas crop up almost every day and in many ways I don’t think they have much place in these more traditional circles as they often have very little to do with visual design.

Web design, though – real, proper web design – needs to be championed and celebrated.

Does anyone have any favourites from the last year that have caught their eye? Sound off in the comments. My vote would probably be for the wonderful – if a little neglected at this point – abriefmessage.com.