Simplicity is now an infectious disease Sep 24, 14:55
Simplicity is a great trend. I love that people are ditching gradients, bevels and gradients in favour of more whitespace and simplistic themes. Unfortunately some people take the whole idea of simplicity a little too literally. Let’s go through some of the things simplicity is not:
- Simplicity is not using 2-3 colours and calling it a day.
- Simplicity is not about ignoring the details and concentrating solely on links, background and text.
- Simplicity is not about spending 5-10 minutes on a layout and calling it a day.
When you make a “simple” layout you need to spend more time concentrating on the details because there is no big flashy graphic to take the visitors attention away from the imperfections. For example: You can’t ignore that your sidebar doesn’t align with your content1, you can’t ignore that your colour scheme uses all of 3 desaturated colours2, you can’t ignore the blinding colour scheme and childish cursors3 and you can’t ignore the overuse of saturated colours and the lack of regard for colour theory4.
When you’re creating a simple design it’s all about bring together elements to create something that although simple, is pretty to look at. You don’t want something that looks skewed, you don’t want something that looks like a 3-toned desaturated mess and you don’t want something that looks like a big glob of over-saturated glossy paint that is trying to masquerade as Web 2.0. Dressing it up with bevels and gradients won’t work. Okay? Thank you and die already, gradients and bevels.
Probably my biggest problem with today’s version of simplistic layouts is that it’s okay to slap together a layout in a few minutes, use all of 3 colours in the colour scheme and hide beneath the guise of simplicity. Whatever happened to designing on a grid? How about using whitespace effectively? Hello colour theory are you there? It’s me, Becky. And why is it okay? Because we’re settling for something that’s readable and completely ignoring aesthetics. Suddenly it’s okay to have a boring or not-so-great layout as long as you provide good content and it’s readable. Sure colour contrast and larger font sizes are all fine and good, but I personally like looking at pretty sites, or even sites that use colours properly or keep their content aligned in a way that doesn’t make their sites look messy.
Not everyone is a designer, I’m sure as hell not, but you don’t need to be a designer to churn out something that looks good! You just need to understand colour schemes and colour theory as well as having a basic idea of what designing on a grid is.
And my family wonders why I browse with styles disabled. Much thanks goes out to Sarai for helping me with this and being brave enough to go out there and find me the examples.
1 Iced Pheonix – The sidebar looks misaligned with the content.
2 Keriish – Not enough colours and the colours that are there are too desaturated.
3 Wordgasm – One word: blinding.
4 PSGR – Too many saturated colours and if you hover over the links in the sidebar there is bright pink on darkish green.
I can’t say I approve of the color combination on Keriish, but it looks to me like your own site has the same amount of colors as hers (green, blue, and gray essentially, as opposed to pink, green, and peach). They don’t exactly work well together, but too desaturated? I’m honestly not seeing it.
You definitely got Wordgasm right, though.
How about a positive example of color usage besides your own site so people can know more than what NOT to do?
They’re nice tips, because I was just getting a super-saturated design idea forming. Guess I’ll have to tone that down.
But you surf with styles disabled? Do you do that all the time? I find it harder to read sometimes. I think it’s just simplicity gone too far these days and way over-rated.
Oh thanks a lot for the resources. I shall definiely use them and finish my layout. Colourlovers can only help me so much.
I rather like Rhiannon’s current layout though, OK so the pink on green might not really be that good of a choice, still I don’t find that it looks awful. OK so I’m very far from being a designer (for all that I can criticize anyone’s design bwahaha).
I’m really not fond of grid based designs though. I invariably end up lost somewhere. I suppose those are OK for news sites like the one exemplified here, but not personal sites.
As for wordgasm: I was blinded and kept looking for the cursor wondering what that red lineart was that kept moving around the page… until I accidentally moved it toward the top of the browser and it “magically” turned into a cursor.
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Hi I'm Becky, often referred to as The Knitting Hillbilly and Pussybear, owner of this site and general nuisance. I'm a knitter, serial complainer, known whistle blower and I run the ever popular
Well said. You give a lot of good advice. Hmm… my own site’s layout is a bit stylistically dubious. All I can say is: I know, I’m working on it. I tend to do the opposite, though. I’m all about what’s pretty. Screw simplicity. 56k? You better upgrade. XP? You better upgrade. :( I have a terrible time with compatibility and accessability but – I’m getting better.
#1 Chantelle Sep 24, 15:42 Permalink