Jeff Bridgforth :: Webcraftsman

Embracing the Medium

August 21, 2007

Best Practices · Design (Web) · Typography

Khoi Vinh wrote an arti­cle for print design­ers who want to get into Web design. I think he makes some good points about how design­ing for the Web is a dif­fer­ent dis­ci­pline than print design. He addresses one of my pet peeves of an over reliance on Flash that I have observed many print design­ers use. It is a valu­able arti­cle for any print designer want­ing to expand to the Web. As a Web designer I found it an inter­est­ing read.

The pre­req­ui­site for doing some­thing mean­ing­ful with any of these skills —€” HTML, CSS, Flash or what­ever —€” is first embrac­ing the medium as some­thing dif­fer­ent from print. Indeed, there’€™s no point in learn­ing these skills unless as a print designer you’ve made a prior shift in your under­stand­ing of how design works in dig­i­tal media. Specif­i­cally, come to grips with the fact that, on the Web, design is not a method for imple­ment­ing nar­ra­tive, as it is in print, but rather it’€™s a method for mak­ing behav­iors possible.

I liked how he makes the dis­tinc­tion between print and Web design.

• Print design is a method for imple­ment­ing nar­ra­tive
• Web design is a method for mak­ing behav­iors pos­si­ble

The Web is about inter­ac­tion and behav­ior. It is a fun­da­men­tal par­a­digm that any­one work­ing in the Web needs to under­stand and embrace.

For me, one of the ways that I still need to embrace the medium is in the area of typog­ra­phy (see related post). I am still seek­ing too much con­trol and need to embrace the flu­id­ity of the medium. But I am embrac­ing it and look­ing to grow more in this area.