Comments on: How important are laws of design?

By: Marc Rapp

Marc Rapp — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 17:56:00 +0000

David,
Send me an email when you get a chance. :)

By: Are there Rules for the Creative Folks? · Versa Creations Marketing & Advertising Blog

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:16:56 +0000

[...] David Airey asking “What can you remove? Edit, edit again, and when you�ve finished, edit a little bit more.” Be your own critic, look at your work objectively to see if the elements of “what in it for them” are there. [...]

By: David Airey :: Creative Design ::

David Airey :: Creative Design :: — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 13:47:13 +0000

Sorry I’ve not replied sooner to your comments, guys.

I’ve just launched my first ever WordPress theme (for personal use) and would love it if you had any suggestions.

By: Jon - SmartWealthyRich

Jon - SmartWealthyRich — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 02:23:53 +0000

Hey David, you’re welcome! :)
It’s cool you got this “have your say” heading there

By: Damien King - Website Design Blog

Damien King - Website Design Blog — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:20:33 +0000

I can relate to PG’s comment above. Creative people are often picky and perfectionists (I know I am!), and its sometimes easy to just keep tweaking a design forever. Maybe if I add this, or change that font, or…

David, yes I find that my musical tastes do affect the way I design sometimes, as well as the particular style of music I have on at the time. When I work on websites for music artists I’ll ensure to have their music on in the background so I can “tune in” to their feel, and design accordingly.

I work with high energy music professionally (production, and remixing for others) so I tend to find that fast background music energises me to work better. Can’t say if it’ll work for others though :)

By: PG

PG — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 23:13:59 +0000

The “rules” I kinda stick with whenever I’m designing are…

1) Don’t be afraid to go a different direction than what you had originally planned. Being too fixated on that initial approach or idea can sometimes put a lid on your creative capacity, and make you miss a potential better solution to the problem.

2) Know when to STOP working and call it a finished piece. Like all designers, I can be a little bit OCD with my designs. Sometimes that extra line or gradient really isn’t necessary.

3) And most importantly, but unfortunately the one thing that I sometimes forget about, HAVE FUN! Although, sometimes that’s easier said than done especially when you have a project in front of you that you’re not very eager to begin work on.

By: Renata23

Renata23 — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:56:02 +0000

Cade, have you not yet discovered http://kuler.adobe.com ? It is a wonderful, addicting graphic design dork cheat (or resource, to be polite). You can download all kinds of color schemes other people have uploaded (you need Illustrator CS2 or CS3 to use the library). If you’re stuck for a color scheme, see what others are doing and be inspired!

By: Cade@BusinessOpportunity

Cade@BusinessOpportunity — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:56:11 +0000

The thing I struggle with most is color schemes. How do I choose sets of colors and how do I decide the right amount of white space?

By: David Airey :: Creative Design ::

David Airey :: Creative Design :: — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:45:10 +0000

Renata,

It might be a cliché, but like Justin I completely agree.

Justin,

You create very valid scenarios on your article. Thanks for continuing the discussion.

Igor,

What you say is made clear in Justin’s article too. I think that’s the most important point that has been mentioned about the overall question.

Thanks everyone.

By: Igor Geyfman

Igor Geyfman — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:45:10 +0000

thou shalt not use a different complicated background on every page that’s also full of text just because you think it’s pretty…)

Renata it is super funny that you mention that rule because it is specifically the one that the boys at Guardian broke for the feature they describe on DO and it came out fantastically well. It is important to remember that those people knew all the rules and so in turn knew how to break them. This is key.