Misplaced Creativity
Creativity can be a lot like money. Some people have a seemingly unending supply while others possess very little. Money, like creativity, is endowed with no inherent moral value. It can be spent doing great works or frittered away like so many. . . um. . . fritters.
A Case Study in Failure
What follows is a picture taken outside of our College Station office. It is also an example of a failure at both ends of the creativity wealth spectrum.
The failure here began long ago, before the parking lot was even completed. Whether it is the fault of the painter of the lines, the constructor of lot itself, or a law-maker that callously dictated strict widths I am unable to say. Nor does it matter. The fact is that someone in the chain lacked the brain flexibility to properly dimension and we were left with this bastard half-space.
Someone had a creativity deficit. Or, more likely, someone refused to spend some creativity to solve this obvious problem. After all, what is creativity but the ability (or process depending on context) to apply a solution to a given problem?
Unfortunately, sometimes creativity gets in the way of applying the appropriate solution. Our intrepid friend above certainly was able to solve his little problem but few, I think, would consider the result 'appropriate'.
Get A Context Clue
Our example is innocuous to be sure, but to me it is a visual reminder of a very common challenge to designers. As people who choose to work in an industry where liberal expenditure is expected we must always be cautious not to let what we want to say get in the way of what our clients need to say.
This guy doesn't think we should impose contextual constraints upon ourselves:
And to see such talented [designers] jump on the bandwagon created by boring blogoholics, who care more about the words on a page than how it actually looks, is pathetic.
Interesting. I was under the impression that what is said and how it is presented were irrevocably intertwined. In fact, I'm enamored of the idea. When it comes to designing for the web, context is everything. We must be judiciously applying our creativity to best affect the "words on the page."
3 brave souls have spoken.
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I once saw a truck parked there. Not a small truck, a big truck, and it had reversed into the spot. It was halfway in the grass, halfway in the parking spot. And the driver was sitting in it with the engine running. If I had done that I’d be hurrying to get out of the truck so no one saw me =)
Ah yes, the wonderful “half parking spot.” I would agree with RA that the words and the way they are presented are in-fact intertwined. I’ve often seen sites that are so poorly designed that I couldn’t force myself to even read the text.
True enough Andrew, but it goes even deeper than readability or usability. Those should be of prime concern to any design, but we also have to be careful to design the website to visually complement the message the site is trying to convey.