It’s a lazy Saturday morning. I woke up, brewed some coffee (helping myself to some more right now), sat down at my computer and started browsing through my RSS feeds. That’s when I came across an article by Adrian Shaughnessy, on Design Observer, Look and Feel / Nip and Tuck.
It’s kind of a silly thing to write a follow up on, at least at first glance. I set out for a languid read and then found myself involved. So the question, to unjustly reduce the article to a sound bite is this.
Today, the term ["Look and Feel"] has seeped into everyday usage, and it has become widely used by commissioners of graphic design. Why?
The speculation goes on to consider its’ increase use, on the importance of usability in modern design, to referencing overall branding within design. Needless to say, “look and feel”, as a term to describe anything, is vague at best (unless of course you are talking about a car, and even then, it begs for articulation).
In scanning through some of the responses to Brian’s article, one jumped out at me with a poignant questions:
Are we trying to keep this shit a secret?
Agent Look and Feel
That’s precisely it! “Look and feel” is a secret, or at least what it is used to articulate by the layman. It is an attempt to sum up and communicate with, as some might see it, a very esoteric service, design.
The term befouls the integrity of design, for sure, but should it offend? I don’t think so. “Look and feel,” as well as the use of “design” as referenced in the article, are both expressions of flattery, if you think about it. They are, as well as other phrases like “presence”, “mood” and “energy”, illustrations of admiration, from people seemingly outside the esoteric circle. For lack of words (and possibly understanding), the terms are honest attempts to capture what it is we do as designers, without devaluing or diminishing. Are they over used? Are the appropriations unnerving? Absolutely.
To approach it from a different angle, how would you describe a design, or what you hope to accomplish through design? I’ve been through my share of critiques and “look and feel” is not by any means the most horrific way of description. I am, however, disturbed when I hear designers adopting these vague terms and using them in practice.
One of the most important things you learn as a designer, is that communication is the key to success. If you can’t articulate, both what the client is asking for and what you hope to accomplish, you will find yourself in a horrible tornado of terms, like “look and feel.”
My advice when talking about design, is to be as specific as possible. If a client asks for a modern or edgy “look and feel”, ask them about color, ask them about space, or better yet, tell them what you would recommend and why, given your knowledge of the requirements.
Perhaps if we, as designers, become better articulators of design, we can educate the masses. I don’t think we will ever rid the world of boiled down, esoteric terms, like “look and feel”, but we can learn how to respond to them.
“Look and feel” is esoteric. It leaves mystery. It is meaningless, but also flattering.
I definitely agree – it’s understandable when the client uses the term “look and feel” – but there is no excuse for when designers use it in their own everyday practice.
It’s natural for the client to ask for a particular “look and feel” summed up by a short list of vague adjectives. They haven’t learned to talk about design.
The problem is not so much with their attempt to describe things based on a look and feel though. It’s that adjectives like “modern” or “edgy” are all relative to individual taste, so it’s up to us to help them articulate the visual specifics of what they are after. Thus we ask questions and look at exemplary sites with them so that we can uncover what’s in their head and interpret their desires into our design. That’s a core part of our job – and probably the most crucial part of good client communication.
Dang, why you want to make it harder for the purchasers of ‘design’? I am not a designer, but I do hear various critique attempts now and then, and I have to wonder — are most people simply design illiterate?
My suspicion is that a person without aesthetic talent, training or interest doesn’t actually have any idea of what they want, beyond ‘edgy’ or ‘classic’. This is simply because they lack to vocabulary to know what colors/design scheme will create a certain mood – or ‘look and feel’. Thus while nothing above is a bad idea, client communication is key no matter what industry, there is likely a point where a client is simply throwing themselves onto the expertise of the technocrat they’ve hired. In the case of design frequently this point may be the very beginning.
I’m not sure where you are coming from here. I’m not advocating anything that would make things harder for the ‘purchasers of design.’ In fact, quite the opposite.
While it is understandable for people outside of the industry to use terms like “look and feel,” my argument is that these terms do not carry any real meaning, and practitioners of design should respond with a specific, rather than the use/reuse of such a vague term.
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