When I was just starting as a designer, I heard David Carson say that quote in his bio for Hillman Curtis. I'd be lying if I said I really got it at the time, but I somehow knew I'd need it later. I slowly chipped away at the meaning over the next few years, and didn't really understand it in full until a few months ago.

As designers, we're tasked with communicating an idea with our audience. That's the key to what we do, and some people would say it's the one thing that separates us from most fine art. We almost always have something to convey to the viewer, and if we don't communicate that something correctly, we're not doing our job right. There's only one thing that's really left to our discretion, and that's how we communicate our message. And lately, even that is being marginalized.

The aesthetic of Web 2.0 bothers me. Design is an art form, and art is predicated upon the ability of the artist to express themselves. Right about now, most of the artists I see in web design are only expressing themselves through how much gloss they add to their buttons. Big type, gradients, and shine are being quickly pasted as afterthoughts onto every wireframe in existence, turning the web into one legible, shiny, forgettable series of clone sites. There's no expression in the army of Web 2.0 clones, not even a modicum of creativity. Instead, there's a clear mastery of layer effects, and that's about it. Text is blown up to biblical proportions, gloss, gradients, and shine are applied, and voila! Yet another drop in the underwhelming Web 2.0 ocean.

I'm not saying that the aesthetic is completely meritless. At times, the entire notion of content as king makes a lot of sense. There are some things in this world that should only be said very, very clearly and with as little creative liberties taken as possible (i.e. exit signs, gender signs on bathroom doors). There are other things that should be said clearly, with a slight nod toward original thought. And then, there are other, complicated things that need to be said in a complicated way in order for people to really understand them. This category seems to have been overlooked completely in recent years.

If a message is truly important, why is it so terrible to ask the audience to look twice? Certain things are too important to be glanced over like gigantic romance copy. If you had to write "I Love You" to someone, wouldn't you want them to take a minute and think about all that entailed instead of just getting the gist? Design isn't about communicating a message clearly. It's about communicating it correctly. Sometimes the two are very different.

Besides, aren't you bored of all that gloss?