Lately, if you've inhaled the composition of one lonely carbon and a pair of oxygens in the web design field of dreams, you've probably noticed the putrid stench of "suck" in the air. It's easily missed unless you're paying attention to the signs, some which are obvious and some that are quite obviously, not.
One simple thing that might tip you off is that the majority of web sites littering the web are not architecturally or visually "foxy." Thanks to this growing junk heap of lousy HTML code clogging the pipes, we've careened full-throttle into the midst of something called the Web 2.0 Revolution. Designers are going old school with a little modern javascript and beveled graphics thrown in, utilizing the original rules of html construction from the inventors of the web and turning tail on a generation of bad coding practice. This approach is brilliant, but thanks in part to the open source mentality of the Web 2.0 innovators, slowly but surely, web sites are all starting to look the same -- A world wide web of sexy, easily updated and navigated fembots, all wearing the same lingerie and lipstick -- how, *cough*... neat. A little further down the road to suck, lies the majority of the Creative Departments in our fine colleges. As far as the "I" can see, many still split up print designers and web designers quicker than they can suckle a funnel of warm hops. The rationale of separating creative people into the sketch artists vs. the code jockeys boggles even my miniature, ape-like mind, considering the increasingly diversifying tapestry of the employed creative world, unravelling in the past 10 years.
Some things are not so obvious to the untrained sniffer, like the fact that the Anti-Christ of the web, Jacob Nielsen has gradually cultivated a really smart congregation in the Creative World -- a planet where it seems most designers have been beaten so hard with a fear stick that they've started thinking that the rantings of a madman could really be the gospel truth from the savior of your choice. Now before you take me out to the wood shed to beat some sense into me faster than you can say "useit.com", keep in mind that Mr. Nielsen was the guy that said Flash is a waste of time in 2000. He changed his tune a few years ago when he formed an alliance with Macromedia, but I'll still hold it against him to show my grandfatherly "web age." While there are times when I do agree with the old fella, blackballing software without an intimate understanding of the full capabilities of the application, is a bit like blaming computers for the fact that the design profession is going to the dogs...
...Wait a sec. Did I hear a woof in the distance?
In the Beginning, there was The Brain. The Brain came up with all kinds of neat stuff to ensure that we didn't need to use it as much -- Putting fire into a convenient lighter so we didn't have to look for sticks to rub together; Guiding us to make weapons so we didn't need to come up with clever arguments to get away from confrontation; Creating GPS systems so we never really have to remember how to get anywhere. In fact, when The Brain rolled out It's shining achievement, designed in It's own graven image -- the personal computer -- The Brain basically let us monkeys know It was heading to the retirement home. The Brain was tired, and this number-crunching doohickey sure could do a lot of the legwork that It always did in the past.
So, it's with this chicklet-covered computer keyboard that my Neanderthal knuckles are tippity tapping, fighting tooth-and-nail the evolutionary pattern of our skull-nugget taking a back seat to the revolution it designed -- all in the interest of entertaining your trusting skull-googlers (or eyes just in case your brain has already shut down it's power to grasp dreadful metaphors).
Thanks to our sometimes trustworthy friend, the computer, work gets done faster. When work gets done faster, money can be made quicker. And if a designer can use a computer, they must be able to do that "design thing" really fast, right? Well, sort of.
If you can type, you can code fast, but it doesn't help to generate the "bravo!-inducing" idea for a client. That's what the brain is for. Sadly, as I mentioned above, our brains are getting all mushy on us. And after that primordial ooze clears out from between our ears, what are we left with?
We are left with...
...mySpace is a naughty little scamp in the war of standards-based html, *poofing* an instant website for bands, Stans and Pams alike with underlying code so fantastically awful, that it should be covered in molasses, dipped gently in wet husky fur and dragged through a slip n' slide of harvester ants at war with poisonous beetles. What makes the code so mind-numbingly bad is the fact that there's enough of it stuffed behind the scenes on a single page to code an entire web site. This is because the "Dumbing of Design Bible" says that as long as you can make it look good on the front, it doesn't matter what the code looks like. This Holy Writ also says if the user can create something quickly and without any knowledge of how things work behind the scenes, it leaves them plenty of time to do things like watch advertisements, eat chips, and watch their friend list grow.
Even bothering to make your own web site is becoming something that old folks did back before all that "dot com" stuff went belly-up in an innocuous cloud of Cheech and Chong smoke. With mySpace, both individuality and design prowess are becoming less important than how many knuckleheads you have in your fictitious network of "pals." I noticed that some of my mySpace friends have thousands of friends... so, obviously that's why they haven't returned my calls.
If mySpace is the hobgoblin, then the recent scourge of overseas "designers" is the bugbear. A recent visit to the website "guru.com" has revealed that the majority of web designers and programmers available for contract work are located in Pakistan and India. Not to say that they aren't consummate professionals, but with rates ranging from $10-$50 hour for everything from coding, to branding, to web design, you ain't getting the most bang for your buck. My pal told me that "when you pay peanuts you get monkeys," and being a part-time monkey myself, I think he's referring to the lowest tools on the "eep ladder." With $10-$50 an hour design rates, if you don't have a client that needs to put together a web budget to hide from the tax man, or you can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the creative poop you're hurling through the creative cage doesn't stink, there's going to be trouble in the zoo.
A while back, a bunch of geezerly designers that couldn't figure out how to use a computer any quicker than program a VCR, decided that the world would be better served and squeezed of creative budgets if graphic designers were "certified" like lawyers and doctors. All this chippity-chap about designers being validated by an exam and a piece of paper will become the incoherent blubbering of the lunatic fringe if the combination of low design expectations (mySpace) mixed with equally low rates for designing and programming, places the above average designer on the streets.
Mom and Pop, get ready, because if we designers don't get our act together soon, your little college graduates are going to be taking back their old bedroom soon -- and they're gonna want the top shelf liquor they became accustomed to in the glory days of higher budgets and usable web sites.
Maybe, just maybe, dear old Jacob is on to something after all...