Web Design Portfolio

The Internet: A Love/Hate Relationship

I began designing for the web about five years ago and it's been—what some may call—a "toxic relationship." First was seemingly unending love. Then came the fighting. Name calling. And bickering over seemingly trivial elements such as rounded corners, glassy orbs, and overly complex multi–tear navigations.

Somewhere in between waiting for a Flash based site to finish loading and arguing about the definition of "2.0," it occurred to me that it's not the internet itself that has caused much of my hair to fall out (even though everyone else in my family boasts a thick, curly mane), it's the people that are designing for it (myself somewhat included). There is such a preoccupation with making every element spin, twinkle, drag–and–drop, bounce, or dance that it's been forgotten what the web's primary function is. Communication.

I'm a communication kind of guy. That's the reason I became a designer in the first place (second only to the fame & fortune) and it's become the driving force behind my designs. Keep it clean. Keep it simple. Keep it user friendly. That's all that really matters.

My 10 second philosophy on the web is this:
If you have a user on your site then you've already won a major battle and you shouldn't take it for granted. Make everything as easy to find as possible and as easy to scan as possible, and you may just keep your users attention long enough that they actually read/watch/contribute something. If you spend more time trying to make your site look "cool" or animating every last element instead of focusing on content, then you are bound to have a failure of a site. People will not wait for your Flash page to load. People will not become repeat users if every time they hover over an image it appears that Merlin the Magician put some kind of magic spell on it so it hops like a bullfrog. People are looking for specific content and they came to you for it...just give the people what they want.