
Creativity is Not Design - Design Test 2 - mcav
http://www.andyrutledge.com/creativity-is-not-design-test-2.php
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rriepe
I felt it hard to read this post with an accusatory finger constantly pointing
in my face.

While I do agree with the point of the piece to an extent, I can't say I agree
with the delivery. I found myself on the defensive even though I've taken
college courses on design. I don't think an aggressive, elitist stance really
ends up helping anything in this case.

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ugh
Do you really think this is aggressive and elitist? I found the delivery to be
straightforward.

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blehn
Andy's thesis, "Creativity is not design," is pretty obvious. I'm not sure
anyone ever defined creativity as design. What I think he means is, "Design is
not creative," and I think that's pretty short-sighted.

Design is not art, it is, however, problem-solving, and being a good problem-
solver requires a capacity to _think_ creatively. Creative design doesn't mean
ignoring accepted principles of hierarchy, spacing, etc. Design goes deeper
than that. For example, think about the way that Google has implemented it's
own cross-browser CSS button style. The button doesn't _look_ very different,
but Google designers were smart enough to know that the variety of default
browser buttons detracted from their brand. Google designers (very creatively)
devised a solution that is lightweight, accessible, looks the same across
browsers, etc.

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dannytatom
How is design not art?

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EnderMB
A lot of Art boffins claim that to be Art it must not have any useful serving
function. By rule, design is built around rules and is useful to the user by
making browsing easier.

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jeremyswank
i submit that painting and music are also goverened by rules. they are clearly
art forms. the cutting of film for dramatic effect is governed by rules, and
the cinema is an art form. and in at man cases, art is useful. its best
exemplars serve cultural identity. they educate and broaden experience (the
best artworks are not just objects, but experiences). i could go on...

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lmkg
I work as a web analyst, so I have plenty of opportunity to see,
quantitatively, just how important design is, and how often it's missing.
Pretty but poorly-designed websites often under-perform by a factor of 10
compared to industry averages, for metrics as simple and basic as bounce rate
or conversion rate. Just with exposure to some of the basic stumbling blocks
I've seen sites trip on, I have enough domain-specific common sense to figure
out about half of those questions.

I think the author exaggerates the divide between creativity and design,
although not by much. I couldn't make a web site to save my life, because my
creativity is zero, but when someone else makes one I have enough of a sense
of design to know what they did wrong. So creativity is still necessary in
design work.

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DougBTX
My understanding of the relationship: if you want to design something, you
must optimise your solution under a set of constraints; creativity is one of
those constraints.

With more creativity come more possible solutions. Then it depends on your
ability whether you find a better solution, or get lost in distractions.

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george_morgan
Lots of evidence of Bauhaus quasi-mystic ideas in this test, talking about the
'energy' of a composition, 'visual influence'. All ideas rooted in early 20th
century abstract expression, which I suppose are now widely accepted but are
by no means the universal truths they were presented as.

Some mid-century rational design thrown in for good measure, swiss grid
systems etc. which are under going something of a renaissance through their
recent discovery by web designers, but they also aren't a universal panacea
for design ills. You need only look as far as Jan Tschichold's (a prominent
exponent of modern typography) return to traditional typographic forms in his
later career for evidence of this.

I don't doubt his assertation that there are a lot of incompetent charlatans
in graphic and web design, but I do think his view that modern design
educators are failing their students is probably due to many of them having
moved on from the Bauhaus/Swiss modernism touch points he seems so firmly
attached to.

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John_F_Miller
I am not a designer. There that's out of the way. What I am is a one person
shop working on my own project when I'm not working for the MAN. I hope that
some day I will be successful enough to hire a great web designer at $10000/hr
but until then It would be nice if the author would help to improve the
general knowledge of design instead of presenting it as a black art only
bestowed upon the eleits.

