davidthedesigner

i still don't get the big picture

You may remember that I've commented on the design profession's fondness for 'big picture' home pages a while back. They just won't go away, will they? Here's some more that I found yesterday whilst pootling around the world wide web:

Pretty aren't they? But what do they mean?

And you may also remember that I'd likened the fashion for this sort of thing to holding up a poster and getting someone to photograph it so that you can put it into an online portfolio.

Well, that clever chap Craig Oldham (I've told you about him before) ponders exactly the same thing just here.

more big pictures

You may remember my posts from a while back about big picture home pages. Well, they've now picked up on this over at the serif - although, as they observe, the trend now seems to be moving towards the picture being a shot of the working space. Just like form:

(Actually, what really irritates me about that picture is why they cropped it to lean to the left, as though they were on board a ship. Is it just me? Or maybe I've got 'art director disease'?)

But, back to meaningless pictures, and even "the world's most influential brand business", Wolff Olins toyed with the concept (again, as observed by the serif on 4th June):

And, for anyone who managed to catch it, you'll recall that it had a slow twitch - which was really scary. But, coinciding as it did with the launch of the 2012 thing, they got cold feet and pulled it after just a couple of days.

here's the new way to do it

You may remember my posts from a little while back about 'big picture' home pages on design studio websites. And I also made reference to the 'piece of work held in somebody's hand thing' - another designer favourite. Like this in fact:

Well, here's the new way to do it:

it's another of those big pictures

Another big picture, another design studio:

Nice picture though.

the answer to another competition

And the competition, if you remember, was all about 'big picture' home pages. But I don't think that anyone has come up with a convincing demonstration that the 'big picture' approach favoured by many design studios is to be found anywhere else on the web. Which just goes to underline the point that I was making in my original post.

But I'm in a generous mood today, especially after that nice man Andrew described this blog as being friendly and erudite banter (and if you've arrived here via Andrew's link, a very warm welcome). So, as there's no real outright winner, I'm going to send a copy of this:-

to Marcus, Alex and Claire to say thank you for taking part. (And an extra special thank you to Marcus for his very thoughtful input into the discussion.)

So, Marcus and Alex - please email your postal address to davidthedesigner(at)celsius(dot)eu(dot)com and I'll get them sent off to you.

another competition to end another week

Well, it's a little while since we had one of those, so let's end March in a quizzical mood.

As you'll see, in the last couple of posts I've been pondering the attractive-but-meaningless 'big picture' home page thing that's currently to be seen on a lot of design studio sites. Here's another one:-

Now Richard and Andrew like some of those that I've shown - although this wasn't really the point. I like them, I just don't understand them. But Marcus thinks that they maybe do have a deeper significance, for instance that Brown’s concrete wall picture could potentially mean:
authenticity (raw, natural wear and tear)
anarchy, rebellion, urban, risk-taking (bullet hole)
complexity, creativity, attention to fine details (irregular cracks, marks, scratches, holes etc.)
solid, reliable (concrete)

Well, I'm not so sure - I think it's just another designer fashion. Because to me, these attractive-but-meaningless big picture home pages immediately say (to me at least) say "this is the site of a design studio". The exception, I suppose, might be the site for a photographer, but then you'd expect the picture to be far more considered and less Flikr-like. And I can't imagine that any of those design studios would recommend this solution to a client, let alone a client accepting it.

So here's the competition: send me a link (and it has to be a live link) to the most unlikely match between the attractive-but-meaningless big picture home page and the business represented. I'm thinking maybe a picture of a discarded can of beans for an accountancy firm (bean counters, get it?), or piles of dirty washing for a laundry site.

The most obscure and unlikely matching wins the competition. And I'll even throw in a prize: this 96-page, full-colour monograph of the designer/maker John Hinchcliffe:-

Competition ends midnight GMT on Friday 6th April. So, plenty of time to scout around the www.

and there's more...

...of those 'big picture' design studio home pages:-

They're everywhere you look. And I even found one which incorporates that 'standing in the studio holding up a piece of my work' thingy:-

And very attractive they all are. I still don't get it though.

am i missing something?

Well, I have to be honest and own up to having been an advocate of Flash websites a while back. You know, for a designer, they allow you absolute and complete control over what the viewer sees. Which, for a designer, might often seem to be their sole reason for being. What you couldn't control though was the viewer using the back button - probably the least mentioned but most useful button within any web browser.

And it's refreshing to see that designers are beginning to slowly move away from Flash as the platform of choice. But, design is design, and part of design is fashion. So you'll see the same approach or same solutions cropping up over a broad range of design work. For instance, those designer portfolios which have photographs of someone holding up examples of work in front of them. So you see the work and a pair of hands and a little glimpse of a sunlit studio. I'm sure you know the ones I mean.

But the fashion that I don't really get is the attractive but meaningless big picture background on the home page. Like Browns' concrete wall with bullet hole:-

Or This Studio's blonde in a T-shirt:-

Or Why Not's Sausage Queen:-

All three of them really great design studios, I'm sure you'll agree. But I still don't understand the big picture thing. Am I missing something? Or am I just getting old?

Can somebody explain?