Why Good Design Matters

So I recently talked with one of my good friends Kensley Lewis from KLP-Designs about Why Good Design Matters. This is more or less a guest post of what he had to say:

Well this would be relatively my opinion.  I love web designing and see the web as my design palate.  Since 2001 I took the long road into the deep digital world and never came back.

Much of the work I plan, build and modify is connected to how I see or want to see perfect combinations of shapes and colors.  Design is such a huge and relative term, but for me it’s defined as what I see on my monitor screen.

My previous college years of practicing Classical Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, in drawing, sketching and coloring has helped me develop an eye for placement of light and darkness.  One of my favorite software programs to use is Adobe Photoshop.  Much of the tools in Photoshop allow me to really express these techniques.  Once my designs are laid out then it’s quite easy to get them converted into HTML pages.

You simply break everything down into its smallest common denominator and stick it all together again in HTML code.   Depending on how you “stick” it all together can result in being really messy or very clean.  That’s where educated skills and natural talent sorta meet.

If you can make it stick good, then it’s a good design regardless if it’s clean or messy (just don’t make the HTML code messy – hehe).

Good design matters because of several reasons.  You begin to build confidence in developing your own ideas and adding more and more to the thought of what is good for you!  Other people also enjoy a good visual presentation, i.e. rich color tones, shadows, bent shapes, inner glows, etc.

It’s all a mysterious wonder ready to be soaked in by someone else’s imagination.  Excitement builds and you then hear a slight voice that says…. “Wow that’s…pretty good.”  So for me good design matters because it’s a part of the growing process into deeper and more sophisticated art.

There is so much we can learn from history on how to apply ourselves and then see these same ideas on the web!  That is my drive for bettering my designs.  I love the impressionist painting period, how the idea of texture on a canvas meant so much.  So when I think of texture, I automatically think of Photoshop patterns.  Then I think of how patterns can be noticed more than their default standards, or be used to help bring out photos, flash objects, tables, borders, jpgs or gifs for example.

You can get real creative and even real technical.  But what matters to me is if your work also has room for applying what others have done “right” and it also shows a new and mysterious wonder to it at the same time.

That’s a good Design

To that I would add that good design captures what you are trying to communicate in the simplest way possible. What message are you trying to get across?

Here at Insight Writer I am trying to get across the idea that the insights you find here are the juiciest on the net. Hopefully juicy makes you think of the hottest news or something appetizing to eat or drink.

However, I am in the personal development niche. So I added the subtitle Freshly Squeezed Insight for Better Living. This makes you think my material is fresh, useful, insightful, and will help you live a better life. Which it is… 😉 That is my personal branding.

As for my design, it is pretty clean. Nice straight lines, everything neat and tidy in boxes. The orange splash logo reminds you of a juicy orange, doesn’t it? I added the technorati and stumble upon logos because they add another splash of color to the site.

Hopefully my whole site design and wording screams fresh, insightful, daily news in the better living niche. Is that what it says to you?

So I wanted to thank Kensley for helping me bring up this topic. And thank you for reading! Please join in the discussion by commenting below on this topic of design. You can find out more about Kensley and his design company @ KLP-Designs.com