Breaking The Design Rules
I have been doing a lot of thinking lately with regards to design and the rules we bind ourselves to. Within our designs we have applied both spoken and unspoken rules that every once in a while get broken. When this occurs it seems to start a revolution amongst the townsfolk who contemplate whether the idea is genius or not. In the end though, sites that follow the norm will always dominate because they wouldn’t be in the norm otherwise. I am sure though that none of us simply wish to be part of the norm when we know we can strive above it.
With this in mind here is a list of rules that I think sites follow to keep them in the norm.
- Logo at the top
- Left-aligned or center-aligned design
- Recent entries/comments on all pages
- Comments under entry
- Two or three column layout
- Having a logo on the site
- More than one entry on the homepage
- More ads equals more chance to make money
- Bigger is better
- Smaller is cooler
Now it is understandable why these rules exist because they make a lot of sense. There are a couple of sites though that I am sure you have come across that don’t follow these conventions or rules. Most recently the site for the SEED Conference breaks a lot of the above rules.
I don’t believe that anyone should attempt to break these standards just to break them since they are there for a reason. They just work. However, I wonder if we get so caught up in them that as designers we no longer attempt to stretch the limits that we have set for ourselves. At times we can become too conventional for our own good.
As you can see though with the homepage of Emersian I am taking a different approach to how the homepage is used. Although this site can clearly be defined as a blog I didn’t want to take the traditional blog route with regards to presenting the content. Since these entries/articles can be seen more as resources I figured readers would want to quickly peruse what is available and I came up with the solution you current see. As more and more articles appear I think the design will be more effective, but only time will tell.
When working on a design and you find yourself doing something conventional just because you are used to it take a second to think of alternatives even if you don’t plan on using them. Ideas have a wonderful way of transforming once they are let loose and you never know what you might find yourself using in the future.
Here are some sites I came across that break some of the rules above.
The Village
Tim Lahan
Onetwentysix
As for the comments on this entry, if you could point me to some sites/blogs that break some of the rules that I have listed above I would greatly appreciate it or if you have any other rules that you think should be added to the list.
2 Responses
david / 04.07.08
No other examples come to mind right away, but I do have to say that I think your frontpage design is very clever. It’s probably breaking the rule that a blog should have at least some portion of some entry visible on the homepage.
Paul Scrivens / 04.07.08
Thanks David, I’m glad you like it.