Inspiration Management

For the first few weeks the new job seemed to be sapping all of my creative juices. The initial mindnumbing seems to have worn off however, and that means only one thing. Redesigns! Oh yeah! (not this site by the way. the other one.)

My approach to webdesign has been changing fairly drastically over the last couple of months. I like to think that this reflects a developing maturity in the application of my craft, but a big part of me suspects that it’s just me becoming a boring, uninspired fuck. Maybe it’s a change that all designers go through at some stage. A transition to a more measured, focused way of achieving a vision.

I’ve had a fairly clear picture of the structure and layout of the redesign I’m about to attempt in my head for about three days now. The old me would have fired up Photoshop about twenty seconds after getting my initial flash of inspiration. I’d throw up some boxes, fill in the colours I was thinking of and add a few drop shadows or gradients. At each step of this I would change things gently, alter initial choices for colour and dimension. Each time something looked good, I’d probably keep it, and the model I had in front of me would take another step away from my original concept. By the end you’ve got a layout that’s very different to what you thought it would be.

This can work great. But it tends to result in designs that you’re happy with for about two months, then aggravation sets in. I’m hoping that a stricter development approach with provide a more sustainable, complete site. I’m tired of sites starting to look half finished (to me, anyway) after half a year.

The new me forced the old me to sit down at a desk (I’m lying, it was done on a couch in front of old Scrubs reruns, but I digress…) and draw a series of detailed sketches with a pencil and paper. I wrote down some of the sub-elements I was going to include and drew prototypes for a few of the focal areas of the site. I marked down colours that I knew I wanted, and also other areas where colour options were flexible. The great thing about being a bad artist is that there’s no way that I can fall into the same traps as I do using Photoshop. The sketches can only represent the ideas still floating in my head, rather than the final design elements. I’m unable to compromise the concept with the accidental or temporary dimensions and colours that Photoshop makes all too easy.

The hard part will be when I actually sit down to implement this thing. In deciding to stick to a rigid design, you commit yourself to abandoning “accidental” elements that will arise during the first couple of drafts. That’s hard. Over and over, in any project, the designer must say to him/herself, “That is nice, but it’s not what I’m looking for here”, and hit delete. Or relegate it to some “ideas” bin. I’m interested in seeing where this ones goes.

I guess all I’m really doing is pulling the design process back onto paper, and letting initial ideas gestate fully before applying them. I can sure go on about it though, without actually making much in the way of a coherent point. Apologies to those who’ve read this far.

note to self: make articles shorter. then maybe you will be able to produce more that one a week.