Today, I looked at my design on a Dell monitor whose resolution is 1024 x 768. I was surprised at how cluttered my design had become; the original aspect of the design was to remove the clutter, and make the design itself one which was very sleek and elegant, similar to my older design in which there were four navigation choices, and one place for content.

Well, allow me to clarify. I like the top of the site; the choice of very simple horizontal navigation and a central logo. I like the front page, with its “Welcome” written in a sans-serif and a pulled title and 200 characters from the latest post in my blog.

What I don’t like is the blog itself. I don’t like how cluttered the sidebar feels. And I don’t like the footer I inserted yesterday, which stretches from one side of the screen to the next. I had neglected the footer in the original design in order to not just break convention somewhat, but to also retain simplicity. However, I decided that my site needed an elegant footer that was well-organized, and matched the overall scheme of the site. It points to the major important parts of my site; my portfolio, my contact email, and my blog (though obviously not in that order).

Artists are prone to tear apart their works, and notice things that perhaps other people would not. Designers, though not really artists, are the same way. No design is ever perfect; whether we feel that the color scheme might need further tweaking, or that this div is not placed exactly as we want it, I think it is safe to say that we will never view our designs as perfect. Look at roses for example. They are aesthetically pleasing, with beautiful colors and a very intricate array of petals, yet their function is to allow a plant, the rose bush, to reproduce. They get the job done, of course (otherwise we wouldn’t have any roses to speak of), yet they have sacrificed nothing in order to achieve this.

Perhaps my example is too weak in linking something seemingly unrelated in nature to something driven by technology as a small comparison for my argument. In my last post, I commented on how designs are never truly finished; unlike roses, they are constantly growing and changing. They are always an on-going project, whether it is a corporate site or a designer’s personal site. However, the choices we make in a design are just as important as keeping our project up-to-date. My choice to add a footer, I feel, was necessary for longer pages such as my blog. It means that once the user has reached the bottom of my blog’s page, they can easily navigate still. This is how we must formulate our choices in designs – we have to make a choice which will allow functionality, choose whether the benefits outweigh the sacrifices, and then implement in a way which fits the rest of the design.

I do not believe that function goes above form; I believe that they both go hand-in-hand. Designers have a unique job in which they must take form, and make it functional. Our clients expect their designs to be unique and beautiful; they want us to give them something extraordinary, yet something that still does what we need it to do.

For example, I am working on a horizontally schemed site. Now, you might cry out in shame that this site, while interesting and aesthetically pleasing, cannot possibly be accessible. However, I have kept that in mind. The navigation moves with the page in a fixed div, and I have not disabled the scrollbars with a hidden overflow property. The best part is that while I have used JavaScript to animate the scrolling effect and not make it disorienting, even users which are not using JavaScript are able to navigate it however they want. They can use the links, or they can use the horizontal scroll bar, or they can use the drop-down menu which I am implementing. Of course, it’s still prototyping; I’m probably going to recode it eventually in order to compliment its usability, but I am retaining the form as well as the function of the page by making it aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.

While I do not believe in large graphics, I also do not feel that every design should be minimalistic. Granted, I prefer minimalist designs because they are functional and quick to load. Yet at the same time, I feel that it is possible to create aesthetically pleasing sites with graphics and images and still retain function. The important thing is to keep the audience in mind.

We are not designing for search engines, we are creating sites for people. They must be professional looking in order to give the person a sense of trust, as well as functional so that they can use it.

Now, also note that I am not defending horizontal sites. I feel that while they have their charms, they also have their shortcomings, just like anything else which breaks the rules of common-ness. Yet experimenting, trying something different and new that is unconventional, that is innovation. While great artists may steal from one another, truly great artists also take risks to unify form and function into one concept.

I feel that we must keep to standards, and yet bend and use them to our desire. Standards are there for a reason; they allow our designs to remain accessible and open the site to the world as opposed to a small percent of people. But they are only there as guidelines; the only true rules of design are the ones which we break every day.