Potential Reasons I May Burn in Hell

I found this warning reprinted on a website called Dangerous Minds and I found it thought provoking if not a little disturbing. Several of the items on this list I have participated in with great joy (reading Lord Of The Rings or the Harry Potter books), or to improve my life (yoga and vegetarianism), only to discover now that I may have sealed my fate as a sinner.

You are probably asking what does this have to do with design? I will tell you - it is about arbitrary rules, that you must follow, no matter how little sense they make, or you will burn in design hell. This list is ridiculous and so are some of the lists that designers make to determine what work is worthy of greatness.

DESIGN RULES ( and who decided that?)

1)  Go for the trendy solution - hmmm - use the clever solution not the trendy solution of the moment and maybe your work will remain relevant.

2)  Less is more. Really? Sometimes more is more. Controlled chaos springing from a a lack of white space can be visually interesting.

3) Forget what you have succeeded with in the past and start every project like it is the first one. Do that and you will spend hours of your time designing incredibly innovative solutions only to have them rejected by your client and then they will insist you design something like the "so-and-so project." Save the innovation for your down time and if you never have any down time then the stuff you already know must be working pretty well.

4) The font (fill in the blank) is the freshest look of the moment and you must use it in all of your projects. Follow this rule and you will virtually guarantee that your work will disappear into oblivion along with all the other designers that used Papyrus or Lithos ad nauseum.

5) The design needs to have (multimedia, animation, fill in the trend of the moment) because everybody is doing it. Watch out. Usually the client has no idea what that means and they just think it makes them look smart.

 I think the little list I started this post with looks like the seeds of an interesting life and an interesting life can lead to an interesting design!