Excellence is in the detail.

One of the students in the design school I work for said, during his final presentation: “Excellence is in the detail.” That student was working on a product for a 150 000€ high end hi-fi product that went directly into production. I was astounded by the quality of the work and the actual attention his whole team had for detail. One thing that web designers tend to have in common with this product design student is the attention to be given to detail.

Too much detail might kill a design. This is the major drawback we had some 2 years ago when the “web 2.0 eye candy” was at its peak. Too much detail from too many styles. It was overflowing with eye-candy. Then usability and accessibility came round and toned down things a bit. We now have some real user oriented web applications that work like charms. However, detail is still a problem. Not in design actually.

I’ve come across a lot of showcases over the web and on some (especially Mauritian ones), grammar is simply horrible. This is even more astounding when texts are in French as we are supposed to master both English and French. This must be a major advantage for Mauritian designers in general but showcasing texts like “tout une vie de…” or “fait parti de” shows a real lack in interest in the project. A designer and web designer tops the design world when (s)he shows that (s)he pushes detailing even in the text. This is where the excellence of detail can be met.

Category: Web Design