Outdated (or Overused) Design Phrases

Well hello there. Sorry for the lull, I was distracted by shiny objects. Anyway, let’s jump back into it, shall we?

There are certain phrases I see on design sites that chip away at their legitimacy. This is because the words/phrases are old and outdated. Let’s count down to the worst offender.

5. Multimedia. I don’t necessary agree 100% with the assessment that this is old-fashioned, but I have heard it overused. Back when the internet was kinda new for consumers and PCs were first able to play video, they said those computers were “Multimedia capable” or similar. One friend of mine suggested we use the term “multi-format” if we’re giving a short description of our skills, if they encompass many genres (such as Flash, print, CSS, etc.). HOWEVER. If you are applying for a job and they ask for “Multimedia Designers” then by all means, reference “Multimedia” so you catch their eye. I have seen “digital media” used in its place, but that also seems a bit…redundant if you’re looking at it on a website.

4. Rich Media. I’ve harped on this before, but nobody younger than age 26 uses this term, so you shouldn’t either. It’s an old-fashioned buzzword without much meaning anymore. It was replaced by “multimedia” which in turn needs replacing.

3. If you ____, they will come.  This is referencing the “If you build it, they will come” quote from the movie Field of Dreams. The quote itself usually replaces “build it” with something supposedly clever, but you really just end up dating yourself. I realize some designers may want to appeal to an older clientele, and that’s appropriate – HOWEVER, this phrase is so overused as to become dull and meaningless. It’s about as remarkably innovative a phrase as saying that you “think outside the box.”

2. Weblog. No. Just…no. It’s just “blog” now. Trust me.

1. “E” anything, especially “E-news.” Electronic news? Really? This is a VERY “old graphic designer” way of saying news. Drop the “e” already, we know it’s electronic because we are on the internet when we are looking at it. “E-Newsletter” is just as bad. I’ve been on the internet for 15 years now (whoa, street cred) and never once did I get confused and think “Gee, this newsletter…is it print or electronic?” You don’t say that Yahoo presents E-news, so don’t say it on your own site.

Web Design Gimmicks aka “Please Avoid Doing This Right Away, Thanks.”

I was looking around for ideas to give me a little inspiration, so I decided to randomly look up animation studios’ websites. Now, I had the misconception that many of the websites would be stellar; clearly I assumed incorrectly.  Some of the companies were actually animation/design studios. Fair enough. In that case, I’ma lay down the smack twice as hard.

THUS. These are some outdated gimmicks to avoid:

1. Letting the viewer (I hate the term “user”) pick their own color scheme. Sure, it shows off your CSS skilz, but unless you are a freelancer trying to be hired FOR your CSS skilz, it’s kind of pointless. Sites that you design for clients usuallly don’t have that “feature,” so your web design company’s portfolio site shouldn’t either. It’s even worse, however, when you have to pick a color scheme in order to progress to the next page. Example. Heck, in that case, all the different colors lead you to different pages – not even with swappable CSS. That’s even worse. Dang, guys, that’s 3 Mediocre check marks against you (let us try not to notice the incorrect copyright date). Listen: picking your own colors was “cool” when it was new. It isn’t new anymore.
2. Animated gifs should be avoided. This is only true if you are trying to cram more than 256 colors into the gif and it has to dither the color (that’s the little dot pattern you see if you take something above 256 colors – say, a photo of your mom – and set it to gif’s 256 color scheme). It looks very unprofessional. If you want that animation, use Flash instead.
3. Animation for the sake of animation. What I mean is: animation can distract the viewer away from the content. So unless your animation IS the content, keep it to a minimum or to the main page only. The waving computer with pulsating lights may feel good to you when you’re plopping it onto your page, so you can “jazz the page up” but there are better ways than distracting the viewer with useless information. You CAN create engaging, attractive design sans gratuitous animation.
4. That damn talking head “type in your message and I’ll say it back to you” woman. It does NOT enhance the message, it’s cheesy and it distracts. Avoid it. Fortunately I don’t see this too much anymore.

Rest assured, I’ll be adding to this list as time goes on.

How about you, any bothersome gimmicks you notice on some mediocre sites?