Don’t f(M)uck With Greatness.

• Author: Matthew Jackson
• Comments: 2

» The kiss - Picasso

A journey to ultimate web design.

Recently, I had a bit a tiff with my head designer. No. That’s a lie. I had a full-blown war. Even Napoleon would be proud.

The problem?

I was asked to provide some feedback on our all-new, fantastic site design.

It’s a tall order. I trained as a fine artist. So I should know a thing or two about pretty. Hell, after four years of training, I should know at least five things about beauty. Would you believe that I’m struggling with the basics?

In a fine-arts class you’ve got at least forty of your peers telling you what’s wrong with your work. It’s kind of like design by committee, but no one’s paying the bills. You learn to roll with the punches. You take advice from the talented and ignore the blatant mediocrity.

Our designer, on the tarnished other-hand, is self-taught. She studied the greats, without bothering to take names on the way.  She missed out on what can and can’t be done. And, therein lies her strength.

Working with her has been a cruel and unusual tutelage. I know, from the get-go, she has no idea about cubism. She’s read Post-modernism and found it wanting. She tried abstract expressionism and found flash sites, which print user-generated content online.

Her list of awesome is populated by a bizarre record of site-links, only accessible from the arsehole of the Internet.

On a recent trip towards enlightened Johannesburgian artification, I forced her to gaze upon the splendor of the only Picasso hanging in our lowly bastion of locally accessible art. Her response: “Three naked woman don’t constitute art.” Fair enough, I thought, as I cajoled her towards Johannesburg’s only example of Rodin (I am a sculpture-boy, after all). She declared it: “unfinished”. After much Umming and Ahhing, I found it hard to disagree.

After being decimated on my home turf by a n00b, I had to take a step back and differentiate art from design. For my own sanity, I needed a point of reference.

This is what I found:

• Art is a commodity. It’s value and cultural worth are determined by the man with the biggest cheque or the man with the strongest pen
• Design is a sales tool. Its worth is determined by the greatest possible audience and, as a result, the biggest possible cheque
• Great designers often don’t understand great artists (should we be surprised?)
• Great artists often don’t care if you understand the work or not; as long as you take the gallery tour
• Great web design makes it easy for users to access your message
• Great art often leaves people going: “WTF, I don’t get it?”
• Great design serves a higher purpose – sales
• Great art serves a higher purpose – ego
• Great design can be measured
• Great art can’t
• Great design is pleasing to the eye
• Great art doesn’t have to be

So, this brings me back to my original point. Feedback on the new design. Honestly it’s epic (I wont say it though – it’s still in dev). I was asked to comment on something that was not finished. Something that honestly, is so far out of my depth I’d rather pick melons on their harmonic pitch than pass legitimate comment.

I know my designer kills. Seriously, if this were a blood sport, we’d be up for crimes against humanity. If she needs feedback, then cool. Let’s see final design. I’ll raise my little niggles, but really, my designer is here for a reason.

PWN is her middle name. Own You, being her first and last respectively. If I was looking for art, I’d try splash it myself. I’m after sales. I have a talent at my disposal, which is unmatched.

Should I comment on a design in progress?

No.

When fantastic comes knocking at your door, you don’t lay down the law – you watch innovation happen. Or, you watch fantastic leave. I know what I want. Do you?