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Designing: Complexity vs. Simplicity

When I’m designing a layout, I usually start with a color palette and play around with it until I pick what colors should be dominant, what should be subtle, or what should be used sparingly. Lately I have been really into bright, poppy layouts. So I start to create something and build and build until things start to looked united. I add twists here and there and account for playful scripts for the users to interact with.

But…

Then I wonder if what I am doing is overkill. There is so much noise in public media – TV, radio, and websites – all trying to compete with each other in trying to be the most visually appealing and innovative. In come grunge layouts, textured layouts and desk top layouts. Everything looks like the rest, you know?

Then, once in a while I will come across a beautifully done layout that stands out to me. They are simple, grid-based layouts that use colors sparingly (or sometimes only stick to black and white.) It is like seeing a person who is effortlessly beautiful – of course there is work involved, but the end result seems so natural that it’s hard not to believe they were born that way.

I think I will make it a personal goal to make sure that whenever I feel things are getting complicated, to start over from scratch and go bare bones on the layout, adding only what I need and throwing out anything noisy. Kind of like a spring cleaning for the designer’s mind.