Art direction in 4D
So I began taking my own advice, the steps I had laid out in my previous post. I looked at designed things I admire. I looked at nature. But the thing is, I do those things all the time. This design is taking shape intuitively, based on those things, without my needing to meddle. There will be plenty of opportunities for art direction. Over time.
When I begin to space things subtly, and introduce new parts of the interface like timestamps and a navigation that helps things feel organized, those things will present opportunities to design — just as needing to choose typefaces for this layout’s rough idea has already given me an opportunity to design.
Why is steering a design with some kind of deep inspiration, intention, or meaning better or worse than letting making intuitive decisions as one goes?
Reliable
Shifting gears a bit, I wanted to revisit the adjective “reliable,” which I had listed in my Emotions post as something to shoot for, and noted last post as something I thought was key. I’m there. Reliable is on its way to being part of this design. Look at the basic things I’ve done so far with the typesetting and touch of color.
The all-caps header and horizontal are extremely stable forms, and the way they’re placed anchors the rest of the design. Between those decisions and the autumnal, resolute colors here, I may need to be careful. I don’t want it to feel stodgy. But then, consider Nice Web Type content. It’s a constant flow of very new stuff, and fresh discoveries of old techniques. Perhaps the design decisions need to be responsible because the content is so energetic.
Just had a flashback to my childhood. My grandpa was visiting, and I went with him to the trunk of his car because he had a surprise for me. It was a Green Machine. It was awesome. And next to it, in the trunk, was an old brown briefcase full of tools. My grandpa could make, or fix, anything. He knew how things worked or could figure them out. That undertone of reliability made each gift and each experience I had with him happier, because we could not fail. At those times, I was excited about whatever thing it was that we were doing. But I still have that briefcase.
Yes, “reliable” is a good emotion to shoot for with Nice Web Type. How overt I need to be about references to old briefcases, or this one in particular, probably depends on how much I want to confuse my readership.
