The last three years working with the team have been my most fulfilling as a designer by far. As rewarding as the work has been, it’s the people that have made it. If you’re working with great people, work simply feels more like play. As well as being surrounded by a special bunch of people to share ideas with, I’ve always been afforded the complete freedom and good faith to really run with those ideas. I’ve had a chance to follow hunches, make mistakes, build from the ground up, and in some cases tear it all down. I’ve worked on strategy, design systems, interfaces, behaviors, identities, copy, videos, posters and pitches. It’s been a crazy adventure.

I’m also proud to say I’ve been part of building two products that are empowering literally hundreds of thousands of real people to be themselves on the web. That’s pretty special. And with what’s in the works, I know Flavors and Goodsie are only just getting started.          

To my HiiDef dot comrades Jonathan, David, Jack, John, Ray, Sean, Heather, Jason, Brent and Katie — I love you guys and will miss working with you a great deal.

So long, and thanks for all the fish. 

It’s a paradox that’s perhaps best explained in the concept of Play. The trick is to not laboriously grapple with a problem, but to noodle with it like it were a Rubik’s cube. Often, the only difference in how playful we can be with a problem is what mode we’re in when we approach it.

We all have different vices. Monkeys smear poo on the walls because it’s fun. I happen to like making websites.

I’m not saying you should stop to working. I’m saying you should learn to suspend your expectations about the outcome. The notion of work carries with it the burden of productivity. There’s always an input/output equation. After all, objectives must be met.

But when there’s so much focus on achievement, it’s often hard to be the most clever version of yourself. This is even more the case when you’re trying to think laterally. When you think about it, trying to redefine your work as something that’s free of the pressures inherent in it, is a complete mindfuck. But I’m here to tell you it’s possible.

In fact, I’m convinced that the world’s most creative people have a heightened ability to switch into a mode Dr Stuart Brown defines as ‘play’. In his book of the same name, Brown reluctantly outlines what he constitutes as play:

Apparent purposelessness

An activity is done for its own sake rather than money, or food or practical value. You’re doing it without thinking about the result.

It’s voluntary

Not obligatory or required by duty. You’re doing it because you feel like it – not because your boss told you to.

Inherent attraction

It’s fun. It makes you feel good. It’s a cure for boredom. (If you’re not ticking this box most of the time, you probably should try a new line of work/play).

Freedom from time

When we are fully engaged we lose a sense for the passage of time.

Diminished consciousness of self

We don’t worry about whether something looks right or not, whether it’s smart or stupid. Later we might, but when we’re playing there are no wrong ideas.

Improvisational potential

We aren’t locked into a rigid way of doing things. We are open to serendipity and chance. We are willing to include seemingly irrelevant elements into our play. In the right frame of mind, mistakes can be the quickest way to spark a new line of ideas.

So these points characterise a playful state. From this we can generalise about what we need to better reach it.

What we need to creatively play

• We need to feel like we have time to goof around.
• We need to be interested in the problem we’re solving and be doing it because we want to.
• We need to feel safe sharing even the silliest ideas.
• We need to feel like it doesn’t matter if it ultimately yields something of value or not.

There are many examples of more progressive companies doing their best to encourage this playful state. Google’s campus definitely has a hint of Wonka factory about it. They also give their engineers a portion of time to explore their own ideas without the pressure of productivity. Facebook’s Hackathons is another example that comes to mind.

Ultimately, play in work comes to those who love what they do for a living. According to Brown, the work that we find most fulfilling is almost always a recreation and extension of youthful play. We all have different vices. Monkeys smear poo on the walls because it’s fun. I happen to like making websites. Whatever your passion, my advice is to try and find a situation that unlocks your playful side and stop working.

The reason is simple: the value of an idea is largely a relative thing. An idea is born in context and of necessity and often carries with it an understanding of its true potential — something that’s only realised in its execution.

People tout the mantra that “ideas are easy and execution is hard”. This is true, but often works in reverse in creative fields. Still, there’s a certain non-committal freedom afforded to an idea. Ideas aren’t bound to reality — their realisation, however, must be. If an idea is a destination, their execution is the map that leads us there.

An idea is only valuable if it’s able to be done, and done well.

What’s interesting is that an idea is only valuable if its thinker has this map. An idea is worthless without an understanding of how, and more importantly, why it should be realised. This is why the ‘million-dollar idea’ is largely a myth. And if forced to decide between having a talent for ideas or the execution of ideas, I would take the latter every time. An idea is only valuable if it’s able to be done, and done well.

Turning an idea into a real thing is where magic truly happens (or doesn’t). In many cases there’s just a handful of ways to execute an idea well, and a myriad of avenues to squander it. A mediocre idea can become great with the right execution. Conversely, a great idea can be lost if the execution is poor. Thus, the value of an idea depends very much on who’s realising it.

So if someone copies your idea and executes it better than you, do they have a greater claim on it? That’s a very sticky question. It shouldn’t happen, but it does all the time. If your ideas aren’t original, for goodness sake, let your execution be. Anyone can get their hands on a good idea. It takes a special person (or people) to carry out an execution that’s worthy of it.

What made it so scary was that I had no idea how I was going to achieve what was asked of me for the project. How could I? I’d never done anything. In this particular job, I wasn’t able to let my current abilities (or lack thereof) dictate what I was going to do. All I had was a blind faith I could learn what I needed to and one way or another everything was going to work out. I was flying by the seat of my pants.

Ten years on, I guess I’m more experienced (whatever that means), but actually not all that much has changed. I’m still making it up as I go. Often I process a brief with the same initial blankness as I did back in 2000.

So what then have I learned over the last 10 years? Simply, I know a little more about my strengths and weaknesses, and have a stronger sense of what’s possible. I’m an optimist.

Have faith

Uncertainty sucks. It’s not a fun feeling — especially when it’s someone else’s faith in you that’s on the line. Deadlines, of course, compound this sinking feeling, but remember: not knowing right away is a sign that you’re giving this problem the consideration it deserves.

Being open is hard work. Routine is comforting, trying new things is annoying. But it’s what separates the good designers from the hacks. I’ll bet most of your design heroes have no idea how they’re going to solve a brief on first glance. That’s the very reason they’re able to amaze us time and time again. What makes a good problem-solver isn’t a recipe book of prior solutions and secret formulae. Experience helps us learn about ourselves and what’s possible, but if you’re designing well, you’re striving to break new ground for yourself.

So in that first client meeting when your main job is to listen intently, do just that. Be empty. Fight the urge to think in terms of preexisting solutions just to avoid not knowing. It’s true that when you get good at hammering, every problem starts to look like a nail. Indulge your client with a truly open and uncertain mind. Embrace that uneasy feeling because the panic will pass. After all, one way or another, everything is going to work out.

I’d land a client, have a few meetings, build up my own brief, and once I felt I had enough information, I’d disappear for a few weeks to go in search of rabbits from my hat. “Leave it with me”, I’d say heroically. “I’ll return soon with your solution”.

Now this type of situation worked pretty well — most of the time. I’d pride myself on listening very carefully to what people wanted. Iterations were seldom and small, and clients were generally very impressed with the concepts and how they’d somehow miraculously come into being.

Being a good designer isn’t having all the answers — especially not right away. Unless you’re really good, that’s called being a hack.

But looking back on it, this was no way to work. And when you mix this style of work with high-profile clients, trying to hit homeruns on a first swing is a recipe for disaster. It was also a sure way to develop a creative block. The pressure I’d unnecessarily place on myself to produce a perfect solution inside my own little bubble was often crippling. Worst of all, it was probably avoidable, if only I’d established a different type of working relationship.

Big failures suck, small failures rule

As designers, what we need more than anything is an environment where it’s safe to try things out. This happens when everyone accepts that things often need to be wrong before they can be right — failure (and I use this term in the broad sense) is a necessary and valuable stage in the journey to a solution. After all, there is a hidden success built into every failure. When you’re not emotionally attached to your work, ideas that aren’t quite right shouldn’t upset you — they’re simply feedback on the path to imminent success. So when we fail early and often, we learn faster, we understand the ‘game’ of what we’re doing quicker and we adapt.

I watched a great video the other day that touches on this point. ‘The Marshmallow Challenge’ shows how kindergarten children are able to outperform adults in problem-solving through the power of trial and error prototyping.

Tom Wujec and ‘The Marshmallow Challenge’.

In a design setting, it’s sometimes difficult to foster an environment that is open to early failure. Firstly, you need to make sure your client understands you’re not simply there to impress them all the time. Sometimes giving up the magician routine is tough. But being a good designer isn’t having all the answers — especially not right away. Unless you’re really good, that’s called being a hack. Being a good designer is having a spirit of exploration and being ok with the reality that things may not always end up how you planned.

You too can be a failure

“People always ask, ‘What is your greatest failure?’ I always have the same answer – We’re working on it right now, it’s gonna be awesome!”
Jim Coudal
Coudal Partners

To give yourself more space to fail, try breaking down your process into smaller steps that happen more often. This takes the risk out of design exploration. Instead of having a meeting then delivering three rounds of polished concepts, try a few stages of prototyping before fully planning things out. The key is you get your hands dirty fast and iterate often.

Of course, your client may not have the time to be responding to your new iterations every five minutes. My disclaimer here is that you use your own judgment. Every client is a little different with unique expectations for how things should happen. Still, in my experience, clients rarely complain about receiving too much attention.

At the very least, when it’s time to deliver some concepts, send through some first takes as soon as you can. Preface them with an explanation that they’re ‘directional’ (because they are). While the client may be surprised they’re seeing anything at this stage, feedback on this early work is often twice as valuable as the original brief ever was. And if you’re like me, you’ll find these early concepts come easier because they don’t carry the weight of expectation that ‘final solution’ or even ‘round 1’ concepts do. Hang up the top hat and cape. After all, you’re a simple designer.

Happy fails.

Like actors, when designers have done their job well, we tend not to notice it. The best design isn’t actually there. But of course it is. We take it for granted — it seems elementary and obvious, as if it’s always been like that — how could it be anything else? That’s because it’s been stripped to its essential purpose.

Where’s the design? All I see is a chair.

Interfaces and experiences I encounter everyday from my coffee cup to my computer, the desk it sits on, to the chair I sit on are all underdesigned. I know this because I rarely pay them any mind at all — except, of course, on the rare occasions when they don’t work how I’d like.

It’s unfortunate that failures in a design tend to be more noticed consciously than successes. That’s because when something’s succeeding, good designers don’t want you to notice the thought that’s gone into making it. Like Michael Caine’s performance, you should be immersed in the experience, not its delivery. Whether it’s to communicate a message or facilitate an action, design should never get in the way of itself.

“When things are going well in a design, we don’t pay attention to them. We only pay attention to things that bother us. It’s like an air conditioner in a conference room. Nobody ever interrupts our meetings to tell us how comfortable the temperature is. They don’t even notice.”
Jared Spool
UX designer

It takes a touch of humility from Michael Caine to realise his purpose is better served when he keeps himself out his performance. Likewise when we design without trying to give our skills the limelight, we risk them going unnoticed, but perhaps we do our job better.

Underdesign

This week Flavors.me is finally rolling out its latest feature, the ‘Grid’ layout, which I had a hand in designing, but is due largely the ongoing work of Jack Zerby. Jack is one of the most underrated designers I know. He’s also one of the few designers I’ve worked with who really understands the value in underdesigning things.

This philosophy is certainly reflected in Flavors.me. After all, its whole purpose is to put its users center-stage. Still, that doesn’t mean there’s not an underlying system at work behind the scenes looking after everything from spacing to line-heights, font-sizes and floats. Hours and hours have been spent developing a system, in which, hopefully it’s kind of hard to make something ugly. The design is there. But while they’re creating their own page, most people will hopefully never notice it.

So how do you make sure your designs don’t get in the way of themselves?

Work from the inside out

Textures, treatments, colours and typefaces get most of the attention in graphic design. Of course they’re important, but they’re irrelevant if the underlying concept, content and structure isn’t well conceived. This is the design. The rest is just execution. Worry about the cake before the icing. Try to always work from the purpose and let it inform the rest.

Avoid decoration.

Design is a means to an end, not an end in itself. It’s a path to a destination. Adding flowers by the roadside won’t make this path more direct. Decoration is over-design.

Anything that’s not vital to the purpose of the design (whether that’s to communicate a message, facilitate an action, or whatever) should probably not be there. That’s not to say your design should be bland and bare-bones. Where you draw the line on what stays depends on your style, the job and the audience. My suggestion — be ruthless.

Know when to stop

Underdesigning means avoiding embellishments and fluff. This often happens when we over-think and overwork. Whether it’s an ad that needs to communicate or an interface that needs to facilitate, be clear on the thing(s) you’re trying to do. Audit the design against these objectives. If it ticks all the boxes, stop adding things and start taking things away.

It’s a strange thing to observe. As content emerges there’s engagement, focus, optimism and excitement. Following swiftly is a pause. There’s then a detachment, assessment and reality-check. The head pulls back and tilts. Another pause. Finally, there’s a re-engagement and the process starts again.

It’s as if there are two different people taking turns in the process. One is doing the manual labour and coming up with new material. The other, supervising, suggesting changes and making sure everything ends up as it should.

If you’re a designer, it’s likely these two personas occupy your working ‘self’ in a big way. And without a balanced contribution from each one, the work you produce will suffer.

Herman’s Head

The traditional design studio is set up in a way where there is a clear division of labour. Generally speaking, the more senior the creative, the less ‘hands-on’ work they’ll do. Conversely, those who are less experienced (let’s call them juniors) are charged with creating the bulk of the content which makes up the work of an agency.

Creativity is a little like ‘the force’. It really depends on how it’s guided as to whether it turns out to be good or bad.

Juniors produce work that’s often directed and critiqued. Failure is expected, and often encouraged. The junior is raw in the sense that they don’t always have a clear vision that’s completely relevant to the brief, so often their efforts show promise, but are slightly off the mark. But to their credit, they’re not afraid to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty. They experiment with new ideas, no matter how crazy.

Above the junior designers, looking over their shoulder is the art director. They guide the process and make sure it stays on course, questioning ‘does that work?’ at every turn. They’re visionaries who survey the work, red pen in hand, crushing the whims of their juniors — the gatekeepers who ensure that only the best work survives.

The junior represents the creative side of the design process: naive, wide-eyed and unfiltered. The art directors, the seasoned analytical side – one which always remembers the brief, approaching it with a pragmatic, sobering and solution-based mind. They have an ability to shape ‘nice ideas’ into concrete, usable concepts.

Balance

Inside the mind of every good designer is a balanced mix of the Junior and the Art Director. And despite their opposition to one another, these two personas rely heavily on each other to do their job effectively. Without the junior’s optimism and fresh ideas, the art director would actually get very little done — like a sculptor without a lump of clay. Conversely, without guidance and direction, the junior is unable to harness their talent towards a specific goal or brief. The work may get done, but without a critical appraisal, it’s often misguided or worse, completely irrelevant.

Why they’re important

The reason these two mindsets are important to consider is that when there’s an imbalance of either, it’s nearly impossible to be an effective designer. Despite what people say, creativity on its own isn’t nearly enough. Give me a dash of critical detachment over pure creativity any day. Creativity is a little like ‘the force’. It really depends on how it’s guided as to whether it turns out to be good or bad.

Likewise, when the junior calls in sick, we suffer what people term ‘creative block’. The process is no longer “trial and error”, it’s just “…and error.” Our cynical art director knows the work isn’t good, but until we can switch out of this stiflingly critical mindset, the junior has no space to try new ideas.

Good designers are able to switch between these opposing states constantly, seamlessly and (most of the time) at will. When ideas emerge, it’s as though these processes are happening at the same time. But of course, if they were, nothing would actually ever get done.

When you’re struggling with a design, try to observe if one mindset is dominating the process. Learn to utilise each to their potential and not let them sabotage one another. When things are working as they should, like a good design studio, the junior and art director will bounce ideas back and forth with mutual respect and a common goal.

‘Heath’, Vincent Fantauzzo, (2008).

Somewhere in the last 2 years, the majority of web designers decided it was safe to start designing for 1024×768 as a baseline screen resolution. Designers everywhere embraced this extra space wholeheartedly. And why not? Suddenly we had a little more room to do things. Almost too much room — like moving into a large house and not having enough furniture to fill it. What to do with all this free space?

And like an awkward pause in a conversation…

…we filled it.

The thing is, that while our canvas has grown, many fundamental elements that fill a page haven’t. After all, our eyes are the same size. Generally speaking, text didn’t suddenly get larger. And consequently optimal line widths (and thus columns) remain more or less the same too.

People fill space because they’re scared of it. They treat empty space like an awkward pause in a conversation that should be filled as soon as possible with smalltalk.

So the space was simply filled with additional content — sidebars, twitter feeds, rss buttons and flickr sets, archives and adverts. We’ve columnized and monetized. We indulged our clients (who, let’s face it, almost always want at least three times too much content on any given page). With more horizontal space there’s a lot more content nuzzled in side-by-side. Information now comes thicker and faster and is processed in a less linear way.

Great!

Well, not exactly. After all, with more screen, there’s now more information being communicated on it at once. Understandably people want to use those precious pixels and squeeze every useable space they can out of a layout.

But as page design has evolved to deliver information in a ‘broadband’ format, I wonder whether we have evolved as quickly as the content we consume. I certainly don’t read books quicker than I did 5 years ago. How is it that we’re suddenly able to process more ‘stuff’ at once?

I’d argue we’ve actually adapted by learning to scan content without necessarily absorbing any more of it than we used to. What’s interesting about this idea is that if we have a finite amount of mental bandwidth to take information in (which isn’t such a radical assumption), then there’s a threshold, beyond which, communication is inversely effective. Another way of putting it — visually, there comes a point when the more messages you fill your page with, the less each item is worth. The more you say, the less people hear.

Spend it wisely

Whether you know it or not, you’re designing on a visual budget. How much you’ve got to play with depends on the nature of your content and your audience. Always ask yourself, “how much attention span do I have left to spend?” Don’t get greedy and try to fit more in. You’re almost always on a tighter visual budget than you’d think.

To truly communicate one or maybe a handful of messages requires an investment of space. Good web designers are stock brokers of screen space. Their awareness of this hidden exchange is inextricably linked to their skill in visual communication. They should have a very clear idea of the hierarchy of information well before starting and be able to distribute the right amount of visual attention to the right messages.

Make it connect

When a user visits your site for 5-10 seconds and takes away from it at least one of the messages you’d like them to, it’s probably doing its job. These messages aren’t necessarily just words, they’re images, a mood, an impression. If you connect with the viewer with the right combination of clear, uncluttered information, you can chalk that up as a win. If they then choose to buy something or sign up to something based on this information, great! Jackpot.

This isn’t necessarily about just bumping up text size, or using bright colours. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying more by saying less. Visual affluence happens through spending space wisely.

I think they’re trying to tell us something. Apple’s homepage is an extreme case in point.

There are many things to think about when trying to improve the currency of your messages, but here are three key things to remember.

1. Keep it brief

Stick with only the things you really need. A handful of messages is all you’ll ever get through. You owe it to your client to explain why no one cares about their mission statement on the homepage. Ask why an element should be there, not why it shouldn’t. Everything you add is diluting what you’re trying to say.

Currently when a website is ‘optimised’ for mobile, iPhone and now, iPad, it’s slimmed down to its bare-bones — the essence of what makes it what makes it it. In these formats space is particularly valuable because there’s less of it. Normally these ‘lite’ formats are afterthoughts. We should be designing backwards from these formats, not the other way round.

2. Layer your messages

Budget your space based on your pages’ goals and priorities. Even though the content may not be linear, per se, visual hierarchy is the best way of making content digestible in the order you want. If every part is playing at the same volume, you don’t have music, you have noise.

3. Be comfortable

When you try hard, you die hard. People fill space because they’re scared of it. They treat empty space like an awkward pause in a conversation that should be filled as soon as possible with smalltalk. When you have a conversation with someone who has no problem with silence, they will invariably appear more confident, and seemingly speak with more conviction. Let your messages be slow and clear.

Nah, me neither…ahem. But speaking hypothetically, supposing you had, I could only imagine the feeling might be a conflicted one. On one hand you like this place — of all the places you could go, you’ve chosen this one, and you’re willing to do things their way — waiting patiently on the street until they’re ready for you to come inside.

But on the other hand, deep down this process makes you feel pretty unspecial. The place you’ve chosen certainly hasn’t chosen you. What’s worse is some people seem to be able to skip the queue and just walk right in. You feel there’s something inherently unfair about this arrangement. Part of you really wants to leave this queue; another part of you now wants to get in more than ever.

I guess in a small way, this is a little how the ‘rest’ of the design community must feel about sites like FFFFound and Dribbble. This type of exclusion can seem quite out of place on the Open Web. Provided you can get access to it, one thing the Internet always proposed to be, more or less, is egalitarian. Traditionally, once they’re out of Beta, most sites are falling over themselves to have you. You’re a valued IP address just like everyone else. You get access, they get another member. WIN-WIN.

FFFFound and Dribbble represent two recent examples of a new and slightly different model of online community — one that chooses its members rather than its members simply choosing it. Unlike traditional online communities, they’re not overly concerned with numbers. Both sites derive their value from the quality of their membership. And while quality is always a good thing, it comes at a price.

Sides

Generally speaking, when you build fences between groups of people, it’s hard to foster an overall feeling of connectedness. This is especially true when those on one side of the fence enjoy privileges that those on the other side don’t. The fence’s placement punctuates a division that already exists in the community that makes members with less clout feel as though they’re meant to be listening, not speaking — taking notes and learning from us. Following.

Let’s be honest — the online design community is cliquey enough. As more red-corded rope is erected, communities are increasingly being split into in-groups and out-groups, players and spectators, content creators and content consumers. Somehow it just doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of things. It’s not open, it’s not inclusive and it’s not even necessarily meritocratic.

But that’s entirely the point.

“I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”
Goucho Marx
Non-Dribbbler

Invitation-based sites like Dribbble and FFFFound aren’t about being ‘fair‘— they’re about being good. Everything that makes them appealing is inextricably linked to their very particular user-bases. In fact, the high concentration of good content has members scratching their heads at the pureness of something that’s web-based. We’re so used to filtering, buffering and wading through the noise of the open web that for members, this type of intimate like-minded community is a revelation. In Dribbble’s case, members might also agree there’s an unusual level of openness and camaraderie shared amongst its members that’s not nearly as common outside it. It will certainly be interesting to see how it changes when the windows are installed.

And as much as some people might have a problem with closed communities, there’s no way and no reason to fix them. Polarising people is part of the rub — a Catch-22, that’s unavoidable. What makes it seemingly unfair for those not admitted is the very thing that makes it appealing to those who are. If it wasn’t exclusionary, it would cease to be at all.

So now what?

So what can be done to avoid this feeling of unjust exclusion for those on the outside looking in? Well, very little. One recommendation is to be a little more transparent about closed membership systems. To create a feeling of fairness, it’s important to have a meritocratic system for admitting members that’s based more on what one knows rather than whom.*

Ultimately, there’s no way to avoid people waiting in that queue outside, hoping to eventually see what it’s like on the other side. It’s one of those unavoidable awkward social glitches where someone will always feel left out despite the creators’ best intentions — a sign that social media is closing that gap further between life online and off. In any case, the success of the model is pretty clear. You only need to look at Dribbble and FFFFound to know there’ll be more gated communities popping up online. And of course, should you come across a spare invite to any of them, email me immediately.

There’s been a lot of chatter across the interwebs lately about ‘designing in the browser’. Its basic premise is a removal of the middle step in a traditional workflow of website creation. To be crude: Content > Brain > Photoshop > Browser becomes Content > Brain > Browser.

Sounds liberating, doesn’t it? That’s because it is! At least, on the level of our reliance on cumbersome software, tool panels, channels and layers. However on another level — one that’s concerned with the link between our imagination and its realisation — perhaps it’s not that liberating at all.

I’ve read the arguments for and against, and both have really valid points. I frequently work directly in the browser and for some things it’s a much more efficient way to go.

I’d rather have a design that’s challenging to build than a build that’s challenging to design.

But before you throw away your copy of Creative Suite, it’s worth considering that directly using the browser to design websites may affect your process in a couple of ways that might not be immediately obvious.

Interface

Speed, or perhaps a better word, responsiveness is really important when you design anything. The importance of realtime feedback is something that can’t be downplayed. The people at Adobe know this, and that’s why wherever possible, changes you make in Photoshop are shown as they’re happening — with tactile controls rather than simply changing numbers. This responsiveness lowers the investment in change. It helps foster experimentation and trial and error.

This disconnect between process and result is something Jack Zerby calls friction and it’s something we’ve tried to reduce as much as possible with Flavors.me for the reasons above.

When this process is lengthened by even a few milliseconds, it can stifle that mad scientist who works ‘on the fly’. It’s not always possible to be calculating with ideas — they’re here and then they’re gone. Sometimes they need to be trialed immediately.

When this rush of inspiration occurs, the fallout is often pretty messy. When it strikes in Photoshop, I rarely label layers or worry about layer groupings. Often I’ll cut corners to see the idea realised while it’s fresh. In this state, I’m more concerned with what I’m looking at than how I get there.

When we move this process to the browser, for me, it’s the code that bears the brunt of this haste. When something doesn’t render how I’d like, I find a hacky solution that makes it look as I want as soon as possible. That’s because in this formative stage, the value isn’t in what you’re typing, but in what you’re seeing when you click ‘refresh’ in your browser window. Ultimately, this results in quite a bit of work in rewriting the CSS to fit the now-apparent design. If we can start writing CSS knowing where we’re going, the ‘Cascading’ nature of the stylesheet is better realised.

Boxed in

Perhaps most important in shortening the chasm between our minds and our designs is maintaining a certain degree of freedom. Currently the new-found wonders of HTML5 and CSS3 have us bedazzled. Rounded corners, shadows, gradients — it’s fabulous.

But let’s not forget. The browser is a box.

It’s a box that is ruled by compromise. Knowing the tricks to elegantly execute our Photoshop creations across different browsers forms a large part of what makes a good web designer. The creativity and ingenuity to work around the limitations of the browser is part of the fun. Rather than meet these compromises right away, I’d rather have a design that’s challenging to build than a build that’s challenging to design.

Even with the new treatments and effects available in CSS3, if we don’t think beyond it and outside it, how can we ever break new ground? Many of these new features and effects may not have even been included in CSS3 had they not become standard fare on the web through image-based sprites and other clever sleights of hand.

Having the means to design free of the limitations of the browser is important. While you need to keep these limitations in the back of your mind, they shouldn’t dictate your vision. It’s understandable that some people have a problem designing websites in Photoshop (I do too), but abandoning it for the browser might not be the solution. Whatever tools you use, having a seemingly open ceiling on where you can take things is key. I strongly advocate testing things in the browser as soon as possible, but only as a means of keeping you on track. Like always, as you squeeze into that box, it will quickly sober you up like a cold fish to the face.