Visual Harmony in Webdesign

One of the things that really struck me while at FOWD this week was the surprising lack of appreciation for white space, and visual harmony.

Where webdesign and art can overlap

There has been a lot of talk about how web design isn't art. While I agree that it isn't art at this moment, I don't agree that it should stay that way.

At the very least, webdesigners need to understand the rules of art, at least in part, to make useable, beautiful designs. It just seems to me that a number of designers today either do not understand these foundational ideas, or don't see any value in them.

With only one exception (the work of Ryan Sims) all of the designs had a crowded, un-harmonious feel. I am not sure if it is because I actually studied classical fine art and design in college, and my peers did not but this strikes me as rather odd.

Believe it or not, lines aren't the only dividers

Everyone loves to throw lines into their designs to visually separate areas of content. Guess what? If you haven't allowed for enough negative space between those elements, the lines don't mean squat. The mind still associates them together as one visual element.

By contrast look at a site that uses negative space for element separation; if used correctly there is no question of where one visual element ends and another begins. Are lines good? Yes. Are they enough? Most times I would say no.

The responsibility of the designer

I spoke with Khoi Vinh for a moment during one of our breaks, asking about the lack of whitespace in todays designs. It was very interesting to hear his thoughts on this. He agreed with me that it isn't being used very well in a lot of design today. One of his explanations for this was the monetization of pixel space. The fact that companies feel this way is unfortunate, but not unexpected.

I think this is another instance where it is the job of the designer to work hard to make the customer understand the benefits of applying these concepts to their work. This was a point that was made by Ryan Sims and D. Keith Robinson in their session... and one that I whole heartedly agree with.

The designer is the expert; you are hired to tell the customer the best way to communicate their brand and that includes things like using whitespace and visual harmony to make the design more appealing, which in the end will make it more useful and this my friends translates into more dollars.